


The Tides

by KetterdamScribe (sakurazawa)



Category: Grishaverse - Fandom, Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: As I imagine it, F/F, F/M, Gen, Getting ships toGETHER, I’m gonna SAY IT AGAIN, M/M, Plot With Porn, Post-KoS trilogy, Shit hits the fan with Shu Han, War, huh, what is it good for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23697460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakurazawa/pseuds/KetterdamScribe
Summary: When Ketterdam falls to the invading Shu, Kaz Brekker must settle an old debt and bring the last surviving member of the Council of Tides to Ravka. He’s got a plan, but he’s not the only one scheming.Inej joins Sturmhond protecting refugee ships from the Shu Navy outside of Os Kervo, hoping her friends escaped Ketterdam. She reunites with Jesper and Wylan, only to find that Kaz isn’t with them...or on any of the ships that come in from the last wave leaving Ketterdam.Then a new threat arrives in Os Kervo wearing the face of an ally, and everyone must question who to trust, and who might be after the only hope of a stable future for Ravka and the world.
Relationships: David Kostyk/Genya Safin, Hanne Brum/Nina Zenik, Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck, Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa, Nikolai Lantsov/Zoya Nazyalensky
Comments: 104
Kudos: 121





	1. The Last Act

**Author's Note:**

> I’m an author and traveling healthcare worker on the front lines of the Covid crisis, and right now I can’t concentrate on my original work...so in order to stay sane, I’ve returned to my fan fiction roots. What business, AO3?
> 
> This has been plotted in my head for a while, and in my scrivener app for a little less than a while. It’s unapologetically plotty. Also very shippy. Mostly Kanej, but look out for some lovely Wesper moments. They are plotted. I am excited.
> 
> You’ll find some Nikolai/Zoya, David/Genya, Nina/Hanne...though I don’t have as much a grip on Hanne’s character.
> 
> I hope y’all enjoy it. NMNF.

Kaz was pinned down north of the Church of Barter when the first Obelisk Tower fell.

Only minutes before, he’d left the Van Eck estate, where he’d slipped through the organized ranks of refugees to speak with Wylan, delivering the message they’d all known was coming.

“It’s time. Grab Jesper, and get out of here,” Kaz had said, tapping the table leg with his cane.

Wylan, who’d been explaining to a pair of Liddies how to handle the new grenatzia, startled at Kaz’s sudden presence. He recovered in a blink, lips thinning, that stubborn look coming across his face. He waved the Liddies on. “There are hundreds of people still waiting for the assigned ships to dock,” he said. “I can’t-”

“Those ships aren’t coming,” Kaz said. “Our lookout confirmed the signal. The Tides are pushing the Shu Navy out of Hanraat Bay, but they won’t last long enough for more ships to dock.”

Wylan gestured to the window, at the grounds where several hundred refugees waited for their group name to be called.

“So you want to leave all these people to the Shu?”

No. But they were the strongest refugees—farmers and fighters who’d volunteered to be on the last boats out, who'd fight if necessary. They were all people Kaz could imagine surviving if they had to rely on plan B.

“Do you want your mother to spend the rest of her days alone in Ravka?” he said. 

Wylan turned sharply to Kaz. He’d always been too stubborn for his own good, but time and success running the Van Eck shipping empire had healed his damaged confidence. Now, he wielded both his brain and his pure-hearted principles with skill. It was annoying. And presently, inconvenient.

Wylan crossed his arms. “My mother will be taken care of. Nina promised-”

“And Jesper?” Kaz demanded. “You think he’ll get on one of those boats if you don’t?”

Wylan’s jaw clamped shut. Kaz pressed, frightened by the amount of truth bleeding into his words. “If you stay and play the hero, you sentence him to a slow death dosed up on _parem_ , making Kher Gud for the Shu.”

Wylan had not been happy about it, but Kaz knew he wouldn’t doom Jesper to that fate. Not when they had backup plans.

”Grab him. Tell the refugees to head toward Newfoort. Annika and Pim know what to do.” Then Kaz had left, heading up the strad toward Fifth Harbor, and all hell had broken loose.

They’d known for six weeks that the Shu would come for Kerch. Reports from Ravkan spies had whispered of an olive-uniformed army, teams of Kehr Gud, and chain gangs of Etherealki desperate for their next dose of jurda parem, all amassing at the Jhei Wen peninsula south of Bhez Ju. The ships and heavy cannon could have been meant for Ravka, but it was the Grisha that worried Kaz.

There was only one reason for a force of super-powered Tidemakers at the coast, and it had everything to do with the land bridge.

For hundreds of years, the Council of Tides lowered the sea around the Kerch archipelago so all that extra water could swell over the chain of islands and sandbars connecting them to Shu Han. With the protection of that unnatural barrier, Kerch had been free to rely on money and neutrality to keep itself from war, and built its cities on the newly revealed coast.

But that golden era of profitable peace was over. In the last month, Kaz had watched embassies lock down, the barracks at Newfoort swell with volunteer militia, and homes in the Zelver and Geldin districts empty as every lawyer, clerk, and Mercher with sense took their fortunes out of Ketterdam and sailed for safer shores.

Wylan—as usual, possessing more principle than self-preservation—had stayed resolutely put. More than that, he’d willingly put his fleet to use executing his part of the plan: funneling refugees to Ravka and Novyi Zem, and returning with supplies to brace the city against invasion.

It had been almost two weeks since the Shu began their march, parem-dosed Tidemakers parting the sea like a plough, driving the tide ahead of their navy as it sailed for Ketterdam. The foot soldiers marched north. People poured into Ketterdam from Belendt, from Lij and other country towns, seeking escape on ships rather than flesh or fortune on the staves.

Kaz’s thoughts had strayed briefly to the farm near Lij, now existing under the possession of a new pseudonym. When the Shu invaded, what would happen to the cheery green house with his and Jordie’s competing heights carved into the beams? He imagined boots tearing up the fields his father worked, blood and bodies choking the wide green canals.

He’d put it from his mind just as quickly. That place didn’t matter. Nothing was going to be the same after this. He could feel it. Something else had happened in the last month, as people flowed through the city like water in a sieve: a new kind of fear took hold.

Kaz had seen it coming like a slow-rolling wave. The looting would start, then panic when the Merchant Council took their money and ran. After that, bosses would their gangs, and the savviest citizens with coin to spare would all do their damndest to out of town. The docks would be choked with people fighting over space on boats, which wouldn’t even risk docking without steep promises of payment or service on the other side of the sea. Then the real chaos would begin.

“ _This country would sink if not for us_!” Words spoken to him years ago had echoed in his mind.

At some point, the Tides themselves would leave or risk capture and enslavement by the Shu. There would be no one left in Kerch but those too poor or patriotic to abandon it, and Ketterdam would fall. Kerch would become the launching ground for the next steps of Shu invasion, and anyone who didn’t drown would be ransomed, enslaved, or sacrificed for the glory of the Empire.

Unless someone stepped in to stop it. Someone who could see all the moving pieces, who had the information and the network and the spine to pull it off. Someone who didn’t mind getting his feet wet and his hands dirty.

It had been a long night of pacing, of staring out at the serrated skyline of his city and wondering whether he had it in him to let go of...everything. Morning had come, and he’d put on his severest suit, tucked his cane under his arm, and made his way to the financial district, and the only member of the Merchant Council who hadn’t tucked tail and run.

“It’s what you upstanding Merches always wanted, isn’t it, Radmakker,” he’d said. “The whole of Ketterdam, washed clean of debauchery and crime. All I need is an introduction.”

What had followed were some of the most bizarre deals he’d ever brokered, and a scheme so massive it hinged on unbelievable. More than one letter had arrived at the Van Eck estate with seals bearing the Lantsov double eagle, the last of which had contained a second note. It was unsigned, in Inej’s familiar handwriting, and accompanied by a single wild geranium, pressed and dried.

 _I’ll see you at Os Kervo._ She’d written. _Don’t die._

 _I should have replied_ , he thought, pressing his back against the cold stone wall as chunks of marble rained from the Church of Barter. He wasn’t totally sure he’d get the chance to say any of the things he wanted—that she’d changed him, that he imagined her sitting in his window as he worked, or silently shadowing him on the rooftops as he made his way through the city. That sometimes he thought she’d become a saint to him, to be worshipped from a distance and invoked when he was in need of her. That he missed her laugh and her voice, and he still felt her handprints as if they’d been tattooed on his chest the last time they’d parted.

He couldn’t put that in a letter. He’d just have to do his best to stay alive.

The whole stave quaked with aftershocks, and it was all Kaz could to to balance on his bad leg. The Shu army must have also managed to breach the city from the south, or at least get a few parem-desperate Grisha ahead of the main force. The Obelisk tower at fourth harbor was rubble. He could only hope whatever council members the Tides had stationed there saw the attack coming in time to get out.

If they hadn’t, the remaining refugees might not stand as good a chance as he’d thought.

Kaz growled, cutting northwest toward the Staves, pistol raised. There was more than one way out to Imperjum. Hopefully, the Shu would leave that Watchtower for last.

It was a ghost-town, empty as if the plague sirens were howling through the streets and not the distant rapport of cannon fire. Emptier, because at least then there’d been bodymen and the occasional furtive venturer, and Kaz had sent every thug and hawker to the harbors. They’d oversee the docking and loading of refugee boats, and to get on them when it was time. A few stubborn holdouts remained, probably helping themselves to whatever was left in the taverns.

Kaz stopped long enough to empty a cache of kruge and bullets, and turned toward fifth harbor.

Boom.

A distant crack and roar, a tremor as the whole of Ketterdam shook. Another tower was down. He moved faster, not bothering to keep to the shadows, just taking the most direct route. Beside him, the canals gurgled and groaned. Had the water level been that high a few minutes ago?

A shadow passed above and Kaz had only a moment to whirl and aim before a blast of wind lifted him from his feet. He fired. Then he fell, hitting hard and rolling halfway over the edge of a canal. He held on, panic surging as his cane went sliding toward the water.

He caught it, barely, in his pistol hand and hurled it onto the street, then hauled himself up, soaked from the knees.

The water was definitely higher. Hells. There were fewer Tides holding back the sea. If he wasn’t quick about getting to that skiff, he’d drown in the harbor after all.

The squaller was nowhere to be seen. Either he’d managed to shoot the man, or the Grisha had fled back toward the eastern part of the city. Kaz didn’t take the time to find out. He snatched his cane and hauled ass to the skiff moored at the end of the dock. No one was interested in any vessel that wasn’t sea-worthy, so he’d felt relatively certain it would be safe.

He was lucky this time. Kaz put his back into rowing, long years of familiarity guiding him toward the island of Imperjum even as he faced the city. From fifth harbor, he could really see the damage.

Two of the Watch Towers were gone. The ones by fourth harbor and second harbor no longer jutted at the sky like dark fingers. The real terror, however, was the wall of ocean to the east. It was a backdrop of slate blue water, shimmering like some sequined curtain in the light of rare Ketterdam sun. Wylan’s fleet of ships were like toys next to it, just waiting to be drowned.

Kaz rowed faster, knots in his chest uncoiling each time another bark or galleon’s sails filled with Squaller wind and sent the ship cutting north into the ocean toward Ravka.

With any luck, Jesper and Wylan would be on one of those ships before the curtain came down on Ketterdamks final act.


	2. Flowers on a Black Field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Inej kicks some ass.

Inej had been in plenty of boarding actions since becoming captain of The Wraith, but never one that involved so many ships at once, and certainly not one that included both menace and assistance from the sky.

She scaled the ratlines of Wraith’s mainmast at top speed, keeping her gaze directed wide, scanning, never pausing on anything for too long. Sturmhond’s airships moved like whale-sized birds in the sky, bearing bombs of purple fire and something far more frightening: a girl, in a crimson kefta, with a power no one understood.

Inej could barely see Nina, arms aloft and whirling—but nothing about her power was a secret. The skeleton of a massive sea-serpent reared up from the ocean, slamming its body into ship after ship, grappling and cracking open any enemy vessel that dared to pass the line Nikolia had drawn in the sea.

They’d been at it for hours, though, and Nina’s power had to be running dry. The last flotilla of ships from Kerch had come into sight at six bells, a firey glow against purple dawn, and Sergio—Inej’s eagle-eyed lookout—had sounded the alarm from his perch in the crow’s nest.

“The Shu!” he’d hollered. “They’ve caught up with the last of the refugees!”

They’d sent up a flare, signaling trouble to the mariners, merceneries, and Ravkan navy waiting in the harbor, and raised sail to go meet them.

The Wraith cut through the ocean, skimming past the lead refugee vessel—one of Radmakker’s loaned ships—and on through the harried flotilla until she saw the first sign of red-silk sails. Shu warships, streamers of smoke curling from the gleaming barrels of heavy cannons, had overtaken several ships flying the Van Eck laurels.

 _You got what you wanted_ , Inej thought. _You got Ketterdam, and all of Kerch. Why pursue the refugees?_

Answer had come in the form of a great boom, a line of water slamming into the Shu’s lead ship, nearly capsizing it. Only a Grisha with a massive amount of power could have been capable of a rogue wave like that. The Tides. Of course—part of the deal Kaz had brokered with King Nikolai had stipulated that the Council of Tides, whoever they really were, would hold their posts in the city until the last possible moment.

The temptation of such powerful Grisha would have been difficult for the Shu to resist. Their navy had followed all the way to Ravka’s shore in hopes of obtaining their prize.

Now, hours into the battle, a warship had taken several prisoners from a refugee vessel and attempted to flee. The Wraith, smaller, its sails filled with Grisha wind, pursued at an incredible pace. They came broadside, her crew hurling grapplings and hauling lines to bring the vessels closer.

Inej didn’t need to wait for them to draw close enough for standard boarding. She clambered onto the crosstrees of the Wraith’s wide mainsail, locking her gaze on the Shu vessel’s rocking sails. She waited, lettign the ocean breathe, letting the rock of the vessels bring the sails close, then away, and close again.

She waited for the moment they leaned toward each other, the valley of a wave between them, and ran down the wooden spar. At the last moment, she launched herself from the sails, flying like the wind would take her and bear her up, like she had wings.

It was different from the swings, or the highwire, but in a way the maneuver was a combination of both. Balance and precision, trust and timing. She arced throughy the air, knives in each hand, and alighted on the Shu warship’s spar like a mockingbird coming to roost.

The ship bucked, and Inej wobbled, but quickly found her balance in the gusting wind. A woman was there to meet her, silvery claws jutting from her fingers. Kher gud. She gave a roar like a lioness and rushed out onto the beam as if she intended to bull-rush Inej straight off the end.

For all Inej knew, that’s what she’d intended. Inej coiled and sprang, flipping herself up over the woman’s head and using her olive-clad shoulders to springboard herself the rest of the way. She landed with bent knees and threw herself forward as the Kher gud turned, claws on her feet sinking into the wood beneath.

Perfect, Inej thought sourly. The Kher Gud are making cats now too. She wouldn’t be easy to knock over. Unlike most slavers and pirates Inej had fought in the sails, this woman didn’t need to balance—she could just hold on.

Inej leapt back toward the mast, then ducked as the woman aimed another blow at her head. Claws gashed the wood, spraying Inej with splinters. Fear beat bright and ferocious in her heart, and she was grateful for it.

Somewhere on one of those Van Eck ships were her friends. No doubt they were fighting too, but it was impossible to know what rapports of gunfire belonged to them. She had to believe they were on the ships that made it past the Shu, and not the ones making their way toward the bottom of the ocean, broken by cannon fire and flame.

Kaz wouldn’t have let that happen, she thought, sliding her knife along the flint beads sewn into a band on her left thigh. It sparked, then lit—a flame that burned first gold, then deepend to a deadly purple. Sankta Alina blazed, and it took only a touch of Sankt Pietr’s fullered blade to set it alight as well.

The Kher Gud hesitated, eyes narrowing as she assessed this new threat. Wylan had managed to stabilize his version of Ravkan Lumiya into an oil she could rub on her knives. It superheated the metal, melting flesh and catching oil on the soldiers’ metal under layers. If she left it burning too long, it turned her blades to liquid metal. Fortunately, it meant the same for the Kher Gud’s body.

Inej seized the moment of hesitation and leapt from the spar, twisting in midair to thrust her knives into the taut red silk. The sail parted around her flaming knives, slowing her descent all the way to the lower beam. A bullet pinged off the wood, and Inej twisted, hurling a knife at the man still aiming at her from the quarterdeck.

Her knife sank into his shoulder, and his decorated uniform blossomed into purple flame. He screamed, slapping at his jacket and tossing the Sankt Pietr to the deck. Inej leapt from the spar, landing on the ratlines, which creaked and bent beneath her like a taut trampoline, and launched herself in a flip onto the quarterdeck.

She barely let her feet touch down, exploding up into another somersault as more Shu sailors opened fire. Then she dove into a roll, scooped up the now-extinguished Sankt Pietr, and came up again behind the Captain. He’d tossed his jacket into the sea, where it floated out over the churn of water, still burning violet. She was inside his guard before he could aim his pistol, the still-glowing blade leveled at his throat. He staggered back, colliding with the mizzenmast.

“Surrender this vessel,” she said, first in Kerch, then Ravkan. His face went stubborn at the latter. Good. He spoke a language she knew.

The sound of fighting echoed behind her—the crew of the The Wraith, surging over the gunwale with pistols and knives and cudgels. She heard another lioness-like roar from the mainmast behind her as the sails above bloomed in more violet flames.

“Surrender your prisoners and come quietly, and your crew will be treated with mercy.” She said. “Refuse, and I’ll chain you in the hold to and we’ll see which kills you first—the fire or the sea.”

The Shu Captain breathed heavily, his narrow mustache beaded with sweat, eyes full of pain and resentment.

“We are honored to die for the glory of the Empire,” he shouted—as much a war cry as a response.

“Good,” Inej said. “That makes this easy.”

She sank the still-flaming Sankta Alina into the mast by his head, pleased as the Shu Captain’s gaze went wide, following the trail of fire as it spread upward. The rigging was burning now, and Inej could hear the shift in sound as the battle on the deck below slid in her crew’s favor. Gunfire came less quickly, and the sound of chains being dragged from below heralded the arrival of prisoners.

With her free hand, she secured the Shu Captain’s wrists into braided wire loops and jerked them tight. Specht mounted the stairs to the quarterdeck.

“Prisoners freed, Captain. Seven Grisha and some in Van Eck livery. They’ve been transferred to The Wraith. What should we do with the Shu?”

“If they surrender, shackle them on The Wraith. Otherwise, they can go in the hold with the Captain,” she said. “Put him wherever they were holding Grisha. For the glory of the Empire.”

Specht saluted, then gestured the captain toward the stairs with his gleaming flintlock.

Inej retrieved her knife from the mizzenmast and surveyed the progress of the flame. The mainmast was chewed nearly through, all that red sail eaten away, rigging like a spiderweb of purple fire. Above her, in the ship’s rear sails,inexorable lines of purple moved like a battlefront, filling the air with the acrid scent of burning silk.

A shadow passed over her, and she glanced further aloft to find one of Sturmhond’s airships was tacking, careened far on her port side as she made a sharp turn. Her forward guns made loud cracks, firing toward a pair of galleons attempting to cut off a small vessel flying the Van Eck laurels.

Something in Inej’s gut twisted, and she put her hand to her long glass as if it had been guided there by the Saints.

 _The Saints are gone,_ she reminded herself. But a deeper, fiercer part of her said, _From this world, perhaps. But not the next. They are with me still._

She lifted the glass, focusing her lens on the merchant vessel. It was small, outfitted with only two cannons, which had to be traded from port to starboard as needed. As she focused, a flash erupted from the end of one cannon, followed by a plume of white smoke. The spray of water an instant later indicated a miss, and Inej caught her breath. It would take precious minutes to reload, and in that time, the Shu vessels might catch up.

Sturmhond would have to stop firing for fear of hitting the refugee vessel.

Then the water off one Shu galleon’s bow exploded. It was almost beautiful—a blossom of vibrant magenta flame and sparkling seawater that set the ocean burning. Like the lumiya, it stayed alight on the sea, but unlike lumiya, it spread, flames separating off into bright wicks of purple, coating the waves like fast-blooming wildflowers.

The Shu ship couldn’t avoid them, and when the bow ploughed through the swells and troughs like a sharp blade, it caught.

This was something new. And as she turned her glass back to the merchant vessel, she found what she was looking for. Red-gold hair, a young man with soot on his hands and staining his cheeks, cradling a round shot the size of a small melon, and shouting orders to the men prepping the cannon.

Wylan. And there, high in the rigging, visible from the bright red and gold waistcoat, was Jesper—firing a rifle at the nearest of the two ships.

She did a cursory scan of the decks, hoping to catch sight of severe mercher black, the glinting silver of a crow’s head cane. But Kaz wasn’t there.

 _He could be below_ , she thought. _Or on a different ship. You can’t do anything about that now_.

She turned her glass toward the Shu vessels. The one Wylan had fired at was dealing with flames, but the second sailed closer, its iron hull slicing boldly thought the wildfire without damage. It bristled with cannons, and as she watched, two figures separated from the rigging, rising like kites—like saints.

A Kher Gud with wings, and a Squaller under the thrall of parem.

They would occupy enough of the crew’s attention that the boat would get itself in range of cannons.

Her friends were in trouble.

Inej clenched her jaw, and started to reach for the flare on her hip. A wild cry from above sent her whirling, and she sprang backward just in time to avoid being eviscerated by clawed feet.

The Kher Gud dropped form the rigging. Her flesh was half burned away, but she didn’t seem to feel the pain. A large patch of her left side was coated in dripping metal where the lumiya had burned through her protections. But she was still somehow standing. Still going.

She would do so until she died, for she felt no pain. Her body no longer reacted to damage the way it should.

Inej flung herself in a backwards tumble and came up, even as she heard the crack and pop of exploding wood from above.

“SPECHT!” she shouted, pointing out at the battling ships. “Disengage! Cut The Wraith loose! Jesper and Wylan are on that ship!”

If they didn’t hurry, the sails might fall and catch those deadly purple flames on her own ship. She drew several of the small knives she kept on her vest, backpedaling as the Kher Gud drove forward. She sparked them over the flint beads one after another, throwing them at the lioness, leaping back onto the gunwale.

The woman rushed forward, knives protruding from her chest and her side. At the last second, Inej leapt backwards, dropping straight down off the back of the ship.

She caught the head of a carved dragon and swung herself aside as the Kher Gud kept barreling through the railing, and careened out, arcing with a howl into the sea. Inej twisted, finding another handhold beside the thick bay of windows off what she assumed was a stateroom, and craned her neck to watch as the Kher Gud bobbed beneath the water.

The vessel shuddered, and she heard the great crack, as if a tree had snapped, followed by the impact and shower of purple sparks as one of the masts came crashing down.

She clung to the stern, hunching against the sparks and rain of lacquered wood. Through a haze of smoke, she saw The Wraith pulling away, black hull gleaming in the reflected purple light. Her sails snapped, Squaller wind filling them, and Inej looked up at the proud flags snapping atop the highest mast.

A purple flower bisected by a dagger on a black field. The wild geranium, a symbol of where she’d begun. The dagger, of what she’d fought to become. And the black field? She still wasn’t sure. It was the death she brought to slavers. It was the smoke and grime of Ketterdam. It was Kaz’s gloves, set aside on a desk, the black of his eyes as he lay pinned beneath her in the dark of a stateroom.

She had to get off this ship. She had to find him.

Inej moved sideways, finding handholds in the carved hull of the Shu vessel as she moved to its side like a spider. Another crack rang out from above, and she tucked herself hard against the hull as the second mast crashed down, crashing through the gunwale, burning sails dipping toward the ocean.

The ship listed, dipping Inej closer to the water.

 _It’s going to sink_ , she thought. _I have to get clear before that happens. I have to swim._

Not her strongest skill, but she wasn’t going to get another option. She’d have to dive, swim beneath the flaming wreckage until she was clear. She shuddered, staring down at the churning sea, its waves reflecting back the rising purple flames.

Inej drew in a deep breath, trying not to think about what might be waiting beneath the surface, and prepared to jump.

That was when a chain swung into view, a sharp anchor swinging at its end. It sliced through the water, then lifted, hurtling past.

Inej looked up just as the slim outboard air vessel careened through the sky, coming back around for another pass. She saw the pilot’s teal frock coat, the rippling flame of his red hair, the gloved hands on the wheel.

Sturmhond.

He must have left the ship attacking the galleons. As Inej craned her head around, she saw why.

A colossal rope of vertebrae had wound itself around the iron hull, dragging the ship broadside in the waves. Cannonballs blew holes in its bone, but that didn’t slow the beast down. Its head exploded from the ocean, winding itself in another enormous coil about the ship.

The Kerch vessel with Wylan and Jesper on it had tacked, bringing it through the narrow passage Nina’s monster had cleared for it.

No doubt, she’d bullied the privateer into coming to rescue her other friend. King in disguise or not, Nina could be persuasive. Or maybe it had been the Stormwitch who’d suggested it.

Inej and Zoya didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but the heritage they shared forged a connection Inej would have otherwise avoided. And who knew, perhaps with a half-Suli Queen, Ravka’s treatment of her people would begin to change.

Sturmhond’s vessel completed its turn, coming in low, anchor trailing. Inej prepared. If she got the timing wrong, she’d end up in the ocean.

She breathed out, staring at the glittering chain, imagining it as a swing coming toward her, and leapt to meet it.


	3. Memory and Resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kaz deals with a Tidemaker, an assassin, a Shu general, and a crab.

Kaz thought no cell could hold him. A bubble of water held in place by a determined Tidemaker was a different thing altogether.

Nausea shuddered through him like the rippling edges of the water as he dragged the man along, their feet sinking into slimy harbor silt. Azuke Danso might appear to be a middle-aged Zemeni, but there were more years on the man than cobblestones on the staves, and if Kaz wanted to believe his stories, he’d been one of the original five Tidemakers responsible for covering the land bridge in the first place. He was as powerful as the so-called saints Nikolai’s people had discovered beneath the sand.

Kaz suspected that, had he chosen to remain in Ravka rather than venture to the fledgeling country of Kerch all those hundreds of years ago, the man might have become a saint himself. Maybe Inej would have a knife called Sankt Azuke. One with a rippling blade like ocean waves.

“I watched this city rise,” Azuke had said, staring out the window of his tower at the slowly-flooding streets. “I watched it grow rich, and corrupt as fruit left on the vine. Now I get to watch it sink back into the ocean.”

“Poetic,” Kaz had said, leaning on his cane after the long climb up the stairs. “Now hurry up, or we’ll join the city underwater.”

The Shu had met them on the stairs—five soldiers, two Grisha on parem, and a Kher Gud. Kaz fought his way down, jabbing the bladed end of his cane straight through the Kher Gud’s eye socket, when a man in sleeveless navy blue robes vaulted atop the bannister and ran straight up. He leapt into a somersault over the swing of Kaz’s cane, landing on the stair beside him.

For an instant, Kaz thought of Inej, her knife-straight posture and near-superhuman balance. Then the Shu dodged the first jab of Kaz’s knife and swung the hammer of his fist across Kaz’s jaw. Kaz bull-rushed him, and they hit the wall, twisting and slamming, withdrawing knives and pistols, disarming each other just as fast.

The man was good. He was trained with precision and brutality, and Kaz wasn’t sure which of them would come out on top. Winning would depend on who made the first mistake.

Or it would have, had the fight been one-on-one. More soldiers charged the stairs, grabbing at Kaz, bearing him down to the stone stairs with boots and batons. He was going to die, beaten to death by the Shu on the steps of the obelisk tower.

Azuke had made the call to release the ocean on his own.

One moment, they were struggling on the stairs, the next a roar like an angry dragon bore down on them, and Kaz felt the whole tower shudder as a tidal wave cracked over them, rinsing through the windows and moving the whole obelisk on its foundation. Shu voices cried out, and a second later, Azuke had been shoved beside him, hands flattened together so he couldn’t use his power.

They descended on both of them, and as blows rained down, Kaz’s last thought had been of Inej, and how the curtain of darkness falling around him was almost like her hair.

He’d unexpectedly come to an indeterminate amount of time later, with a Healer’s hand on his face. He jerked away, heard the slosh of water, and smelled dank ocean.

He was chained to a wall in what he could only assume was a cell in the Obelisk Tower. He’d been stripped from the waist up, and the water rising around his ribs was murky with salt and stirred-up mud. Azuke was beside him, still unconscious.

Four people stood around him. The nearest was a blonde woman, her eyes a glowing, exultant shade of honey brown. She wore a battered red kefta, its embroidery indicating that she had been a Healer trained by the second army. She’d healed him, at least enough to come to.

Behind her stood a Shu man in a heavily-decorated uniform, and to his right, a man wearing what almost appeared to be religious robes.

The healer turned to the fourth man, whom Kaz recognized as the Shu fighter with the impeccable balance. He took in the man’s bare chest, the distribution of familiar scars, the crow and cup on his forearm. And there, on his bicep, like a dark blot of betrayal, a capitalized black R.

Understanding was a clap of thunder, and Kaz dragged himself to his knees an instant before the Grisha looked at him, shook her head, and said - “stop.”

He’d stopped. Nothing in the world could have made his body disobey that order. Rage and terror screeched inside his head as he watched the Corporalnik reach up to the Shu assassin’s face. The skin went pale, cheekbones sharpening. His eyes changed shape, the bridge of his nose raised and lengthened. Kaz watched his own features rise from the man’s like a mountain pushing from the earth.

Horror was a slick serpent in his gut as the man now wearing his face donned Kaz’s shirt and coat. He tugged on black gloves, hefted a crow’s head cane.

His eyes were flat and black, cold as a shark’s. It was like looking in a mirror, and watching the reflection move on its own.

The uniformed man waved the Corporalnik and the assassin away, and Kaz watched the man struggle through a few limping steps before he found a rhythm. They’d even broken his leg and set it wrong. They’d matched everything.

What would this Kaz do when he arrived in Os Kervo?

Nothing good, he thought.

“Let him speak,” the man said, and the Grisha waved her hand. Kaz felt something give in his throat and jaw.

“If you think for a fucking second that cheap copy will fool-”

He was silenced by a backhand blow, the Shu General—those were definitely a general’s configuration of golden insignia—bent low, putting his face near Kaz’s.

“You’ll tell me any code the King of Ravka or his triumvirate has given you.”

“Like hell I will,” Kaz said. He should have taunted the man, looked for the angle, the lever...but his mind was too busy supplying horrifying images of Jesper’s throat opened by a blade he never saw coming. Wylan, coughing and hemorrhaging from a bullet in the lung.

Inej. What would he do to Inej? Would she know it wasn’t him? How close would she have to get before she noticed something was wrong. What could he do to her if she wasn’t expecting it.

He remembered the low thrum of her laugh against his neck, the way her body had felt stretched out over his, warm through the mussed fabric of what remained of their clothes. She was light, but under his hands she grew boneless and heavy, surrendering the weight of her head to his shoulder as he’d molded his hands to her shoulder blades.

“That’s where the wings are,” she’d murmured, that same half-chuckle, as if she were drunk.

“You should have told me you were that gifted at hiding things,” he’d said. She’d uncurled her hands from his shoulders and stretched, one arm sliding beneath his neck, the other above his head. Kaz had experienced a flare of nerves and something dangerously close to happiness, feeling her move against him, under his hands.

“You would have known I was hiding something,” she’d said, pulling herself up a little higher and crossing an arm over his chest. She rested her chin on it, looking down at him. Her eyes had glittered in the dark, picking up the diamond-pained reflection of her stateroom’s windows.

“And I’d have tried to get it out of you.”

“Which is considerably more fun now than it would have been when I was still with the Dregs.”

Because he hadn’t been able to touch her then. The familiar pull of that old tide still flickered at the edges of his senses, but it had been three years since he’d put the final brick in his wall of vengeance, and now he found that wall more and more effective at keeping the tide away. Over time, with agonizing tests like this, he’d found himself capable of some small normalcy.

“And it was wings you hid all that time?” he’d said, both hands rubbing into the contours where she kept her supposed feathers. The reward of a sigh, and Kaz almost smirked. This was what kept him grounded, the little discoveries, the puzzle and mystery of touching her, and unlocking those little sounds, watching her features soften, feeling her legs tense, her heel hooking behind his knee to keep him close.

It still made him dizzy, every time. Inej was overwhelming, like six shots of whisky in quick succession, after months of sobriety. He found himself utterly, humiliatingly willing to get drunk.

“Wings,” Inej had said, leaning in, her hair sliding from her shoulders and dipping in a curtain around his face. It blocked out the world, encapsulating them both in an endless midnight. He’d felt the brush of her lips on his, tasted the words as she added, “but those weren’t my only secrets.”

He’d felt his mouth twitch, his chest warm with that spreading whisky burn. It was a moment suspended on a slowly fraying thread, trust and longing spinning gracefully as time waited for one of them to snap it. He wasn’t sure he breathed at all. Wasn’t sure he needed to. He could live on the feel of her belly pressed against his, the warm curve of her back as he palmed his way down, finding the hem of her shirt, moving slowly beneath it, giving her time to pull away.

But she didn’t. She broke the thread.

And now some bastard was wearing his face. Using that trust. And if Kaz could have stopped it from happening, he’d have put the barrel of a gun in his mouth.

“You can rot in hell,” Kaz said to the general. “There’s no code.”

The general smiled. “Olya?”

The Grisha stepped forward. “Tell him what he wants to know.”

Kaz laughed, though he couldn’t control the words that spilled from his mouth. “There’s nothing to tell. Some things can’t be faked—Nikolai Lantsov will believe the people who know me, and they’ll figure your man out before he gets anywhere near the King of Ravka.”

“Fortunately, it’s not the King we want,” said the General. He patted Kaz’s cheek. If Kaz had been capable of moving, he’d have snapped off every one of the general’s fingers and shoved them down his throat.

Who did they want, then? Kaz refused to ask.

“So now what,” he said. “You slit my throat and take the Tidemaker? Dose him with parem and have him make you a path to march straight to Ravka?”

The general snorted. “Our Emperor may believe that is a good idea, but he doesn’t know the risk of the first dose. Their power is incredible, yet they are not yet in our grasp. No. I will not risk such a powerful Grisha. He will stay here with you, and wait for the tide.”

The Grisha girl had looked at him, her eyes vacant, and waved her hand. Kaz felt power return to him and lunged up like a dog on the end of a chain, slamming his forehead into the General’s nose.

“Then let’s bring the sharks,” he’d growled. “I’d hate for this to take all night.”

The general had kicked him, then waded from the room, down a short hallway where Kaz could see a window had been thrown open, a dory waiting for him to climb aboard. They’d left him behind, the man with Kaz’s face now bending the oars to the tide.

It had taken some doing to get the shackles open. With his shirt, waistcoat, and jacket gone, he’d had to dig into his boot for picks, and given that his arms had been shackled above his head, it had taken a bit of gymnastics. He wasn’t as flexible as Inej. Hell, even Jesper behaved like ligaments weren’t a factor half the time. Still, this sort of maneuver wouldn’t have been very difficult if he hadn’t so recently been beaten to a pulp.

The Grisha had healed him only enough to see his features, all the better to transform a pretender into him. He’d drawn his knees to his chest and made a series of very stupid-looking attempts to hook the ankle of his good leg around the chain.

Once he got his picks, springing the lock wasn’t an issue. He’d freed himself, then Azuke—still unconscious. Kaz growled in frustration and waded through the unfamiliar floor. They were definitely on Imperjum, still inside the obelisk tower. He moved to the window where the general had disappeared and froze, his heart giving a mad thud in his chest.

Spires and towers poked up from the sea, glittering in the sunset, almost unrecognizable. The whole of Ketterdam was underwater.

He saw the domes of the Church of Barter, the colonnades of the Exchange. There was the Geldrenner hotel, the stocky, garish third and fourth stories of a few gambling houses on the stave.

But the smaller buildings, the rickety facades of those clustered houses in the barrel...

He thought of the wave, slamming into the tower, moving it like it wasn’t thousands of pounds of stone.

The slat was gone. Flotsam on the tide, gathering at a new shoreline he could barely see in the distance. And the tide was only rising. His skiff had been tied at the dock. It would still be there, useless under three stories of water.

“Planning to swim, Kaz Brekker?”

He’d turned. Azuke stood behind him, the water parted around him. He was barely on his feet, swaying from the injuries he’d sustained, which the Corporalnik hadn’t bothered to heal.

“I’m open to alternatives,” he’d said. Azuke Danso waved him over.

“You’ll have to help me down the stairs, boy.” Kaz watched the water pull away from his boots, forming a narrow path to the Tidemaker’s side. “It’s time to hold up your side of the bargain.”

“I’ll get you to Ravka,” said Kaz. “But we’re going to need a boat.”

Which is how they ended up walking on the slick sea floor, searching the sunken ships in what had once been Hanraat bay, for something sea worthy.

Kaz’s leg was on fire. He’d found nothing so far to substitute for his cane, and between his beatings, half the weight of an injured Tidemaker, and the suction of mud clinging to his feet, he was fairly certain he’d done something to the knee. He kept his jaw clenched in pain, grateful that at least the rub of the Tidemaker’s arm across the back of his neck didn’t send him pitching over in disgust the way it once might have.

“The man they tailored,” the Tidemaker said suddenly. “He had the look of an assassin from Amrat Jen.”

“You were awake?” Kaz demanded, kicking aside a crab that clicked its pincers threateningly in their direction. He’d almost gotten used to the little bubble, its strange, wobbling light, filtered all the way from the gibbous moon far above. But the idea that there were millions of gallons of water above him and, at any moment, the Tidemaker could pass out, or fail to turn back a shark or one of those other odd silhouettes that sometimes passed, kept him in a cold sweat.

“Yes,” the Tidemaker said. “I woke when they shackled me, but I kept myself silent. They had secured my hands too well. It was all I could do to keep the tides so low around us.”

Kaz grunted. “Okay, so there’s an assassin on his way to kill someone in Ravka, and for some reason, they thought they needed my face to do it.”

“What do you imagine would have happened if we’d gotten to our original boat?” Azuke said.

Kaz sighed. They’d intended to meet the rest of the Council of Tides, and however many refugees made it to first harbor, at a schooner anchored several miles down the coast. He could only assume that plan was known to the general.

“One of the Council of Tides must be passing information to the Shu,” Kaz said. “So I imagine if I’d made it to the boat, they’d have tried to kill me. You mean if that weren’t the case, what would I have expected when we docked in Ravka?”

Azuke grunted.

Kaz pressed his lips. It seemed idiotic now not to have planned for one of the Council of Tides to have betrayed them. He usually worked under the assumption of betrayal. But there wasn’t really much of a failsafe against it, aside from compartmentalizing information, and there hadn’t been time for that. Not enough time, and not enough people he trusted.

“I expect when we docked, there would have been a flurry of papers and registrations. I’d have most likely found whoever was in charge and made them take me to wherever they’d put up Wylan and Jesper. By the time we arrived, they should have already been in contact with the triumvirate. I assume there would be some sort of meeting in Os Kervo before we headed inland to Os Alta.”

Azuke whirled his wrist, and a curling path pushed ahead, showing the hull of something slim and encrusted in barnacles.

“Plenty of time for someone to realize he’s not you.”

“Maybe,” Kaz said, remembering the man’s cold stare.

The Tidemaker stopped, and Kaz was forced to stop with him. He put a hand on the ship’s hull, using it to take the weight off his bad leg.

“Did you lie to the general?” Azuke asked. “You’re not confident your friends will reveal the traitor?”

Kaz wanted to believe they could. But... “He doesn’t just look like me,” Kaz said. “He’s got my cane. My clothes.” The note from Inej. “They wouldn’t try this without plenty of information. They probably mimicked my vocal cords well enough so he’ll have my voice. In all the confusion, it might not matter that he doesn’t act perfectly right. He’ll know the people around me, our relationships.”

“Your best friend won’t know it?”

Kaz thought of Jesper’s slow, confident grin. “People see what they want to see. He’ll probably be too relieved I’m alive to notice there’s something off. Even if he does...” Kaz shook his head. “There’s plenty of reason for me to be off. Would you believe it?”

Azuke shrugged. “I have not experienced close friendship in over three-hundred years, Kaz Brekker. I do not suppose I remember what a friend would believe.”

Kaz regarded the man, eyebrow raised. The leader of the Council of Tides caught his look. “One tires of watching friends grow old. Even Grisha, when they are less powerful, less connected to the making at the heart of the world, age and pass on. I am content with memory.”

He wasn’t sure if the stab in his chest was pity, or simply the protest of his aching body.

“I’m thrilled to hear it,” Kaz said. “How connected are you to the making of a boat for us to sail out on? I’m getting tired of breathing harbor.”

Azuke gestured at the hull Kaz leaned against. “This should do.”

Kaz blinked, then looked at the barnacle-encrusted planks. Azuke moved both wrists in circles, and water poured from portholes and snaked away from what proved to be a hundred-foot schooner, double-masted, and deeply carved with something that might have been a stylized hawk, or a...dragon. Or...it was hard to tell under the encrustations of time.

“If this is some kind of joke,” Kaz began, “I’m going to go back for that crab and shove it somewhere unpleasant. I don’t care if you drown me.”

Azuke grinned, his teeth a shock of white in his dark face. “Oh, I am not joking Mr. Brekker. Meet Phoenix, a vessel made by the last man I called friend. She’s been resting here for centuries, preserved against decay. I think it’s time for a resurrection.”


	4. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lovely dregs reunion, followed by plot, then UNABASHED WESPER SMUT. THIS CHAPTER EARNS THE RATING, FOLKS. NOT SORRY. <3

Wylan’s legs were wobbling by the time he got to the stairs off the quay, a combination of sea-legs and the energy crash that often assaulted him when the fighting was through.

They’d sailed upriver to Os Kervo, the last ship limping into harbor under the protective shadow of Sturmhond’s airships. He’d been disappointed when The Wraith peeled off, lingering in the Bay, but when they arrived at the harbor, he saw why. Every berth was occupied by a ship, its gangplanks choked with refugees. Wylan—his presence requested by Sturmhond and a member of the Grisha triumvirate—had to clamber down a rope ladder and be rowed to the docks, and even then, he and Jesper had waited for nearly half a bell to be allowed on the quay.

At which point refugees and ship’s crews turned to gaze at him, some making the sign of Gezen, others whispering about saints or bowing their heads. He cringed, disliking what felt like unwarranted thanks. He was only doing what any decent human being would do, when given the opportunity to help people. It wasn’t as if he’d singlehandedly sailed every ship in his fleet from Ketterdam to Ravka.

Jesper lashed an arm around his back, steadying a stumble as they mounted the stairs toward the palace at Os Kervo.

“Careful, Merchling,” Jesper said. “You’ll make them think you’re falling for me.”

Wylan was too exhausted to even laugh. He managed a tired smile, grateful for Jesper’s limitless energy, and leaned into his lover’s side, letting the sharpshooter do the work of balancing them up the stairs. As usual, the fight had done Jesper more good than harm. He looked alive, tousled, and warm. His fingers were firm on Wylan’s ribs, and he looked about a half second away from saying something to make Wylan blush.

Which he still did. Exposure did not cure one from the effects of Jesper Fahey, even if one got more adept at dealing with them.

People flowed past them in both directions, soldiers and liveried servants rushing down to wrangle people and possessions, refugees rushing up in search of the registration lines, where their papers would be stamped if they had them, issued if they didn’t, and they’d be organized into groups bound for the countryside or training camps.

They reached the landing, the tables arrayed before the wide white palace of Os Kervo, and something in Wylan’s heart cringed. Part of him wished he and Jesper could blend into the masses, that their names issued to the sergeants registering refugees would mean nothing, and they could go find a quiet place to rest away from the weight of responsibility.

But even up here, people were turning, bowing their heads to him or speaking thanks, and it was all he could do to smile and nod, to give them yet another piece of himself and his energy. Thank Gezen for Jesper, and his ability to charm crowds of people.

“Marry me,” Wylan murmured.

Jesper rubbed his arm. “That’s the twelfth time you’ve asked.”

“And you keep thinking I’m joking.”

“If I thought you really wanted to break more laws, maybe I’d say yes.”

”It’s not illegal in Kerch,” He said. “There’s just no paperwork for it. But there is in Ravka.”

Jesper tensed, then looked down. “What?”

If Wylan had the energy, he might have laughed. “In Ravka and the Wandering Isle no one bats an eyelash. I’d heard in Novyi Zem it’s legal as well.”

Jesper nodded. “Sure. But the government doesn’t really have much to do with marriage—it’s all done on a community level.”

”Maybe if we ever get Kerch back, we can have the documents made.”

Jesper was quiet for a moment, and in that moment, Wylan felt a slight twist of doubt. He’d been fairly certain that, beneath all their joking, if he’d ever seriously asked, Jesper would have said yes. But maybe it would feel too much like a cage.

”Or,” Jesper said, his gray eyes narrowed at the tables ahead, “we could just register that way. It’s not like the Ravkans will ask for papers at this point.”

A gust of relief and joy blew through him, clearing out that last little glimmer of doubt. Wylan leaned his head against Jesper’s shoulder, tightening his arm around his waist. “We could. But then you wouldn’t get the party. I figured you wanted at least two champagne fountains, fireworks, and a white suit.”

Jesper grinned. ”Three champagne fountains. And we make Kaz wear the white suit. I don’t want you in anything that can stain.”

“Slow down, Inej!”

Wylan didn’t get the chance to laugh. A cannon ball of soggy black and purple wool hit Wylan at chest height, knocking him sideways into Jesper, who only managed to keep them upright by throwing his long arms around Wylan and the petite Suli girl now sobbing in his arms.

“Inej?” he choked, hugging her reflexively. “Inej—Ghezen, you’re soaked.” His exhaustion evaporated as she extended her embrace to snatch at Jesper’s coat, trying to hug both of them at once. Then Nina was there, throwing her arms into the tangle, and they were all laughing, unknotting and re-knotting themselves as they tried to hug each other individually without letting go of anyone else.

At last, they pulled back, though Inej remained tucked under Wylan’s arm, which might have been to keep him upright on legs that were shaking even harder. His throat felt raw, and he was dangerously close to breaking down into tears of exhaustion and relief.

Nina was wiping her sparkling green eyes. “You’re all okay,” she said. “Saints, I was worried. Where’s Kaz? I thought he’d be with you.”

Wylan felt Inej tense, and squeezed her shoulders. “No, he had to do something else. We had to go to the backup plan. He should be about a day behind with-“

“Our powerful friends,” Nina cut him off. “Fine. I’m supposed to bring you two to talk with Sturmhond.”

Wylan glanced at the lines of refugees. “Do we need to-”

Nina waved away the question before he could finish it. “Don’t be stupid. Those are for the people we don’t know what to do with. Come on. I’ve requested blini. Lots of them. You’ve got to be hungry after sailing that far so fast.”

They followed Nina, Inej between them. “Why are you wet, Wraith?” Jesper asked.

“Sturmhond had to make a fast dive to avoid a Kher Gud,” she said. “I was on the anchor chain. Wylan, what were those bombs? The ones that look like wildflowers.”

“New design,” he said.

“I want some.”

“I’d argue they were still in testing, but...” Wylan lifted a hand. “They seemed to work.”

They slipped past the crowds and into the palace, trudging up wide marble stairs that bore the signs of Fabrikator repair, then a long hallway filled with tapestries depicting the workings of Ravka’s many saints. Wylan only knew a few of them, and of those, could only confidently recognize the symbols of a few. Nina stopped by a tapestry of what Wylan thought might be Sankt Grigori and pushed aside the weaving. She felt around, then pushed at a lacquered tile that looked identical to all the other tiles.

A hiss followed, then a suctioning of air as a hatch separated itself from the wall.

“A secret passage?” Jesper said, then turned to Wylan. “Why didn’t we have a secret passage?”

“We did,” Wylan said. “I kept it a secret.”

“I reject your proposal until you build me a secret passage.”

Nina grinned at them. “Oh, now this sounds like a story I need to hear,” she said, waving them inside. “How’d he do it? Fireworks spelling out, Marry Me, You Tall Bundle of Bad Choices?”

Wylan let out an actual laugh. “There’ve been one or two like that. Though I think I called him a human flashbomb. Or maybe an infuriating personification of entropy.”

“Did someone call?” said a man’s jovial voice from within. “Because that sounded like an invocation—ouch! Hanne, love, you know the point of a Healer is to dull the pain.”

They entered a small, well-appointed room stuffed with velvet-cushioned chairs and a large, low table with a map of the continents beautifully etched in gold on its surface. A long, low sideboard held the promised blini, along with cabbage rolls and the little potato dumplings he’d fallen in love with as a child visiting Os Kervo with his father.

Several people had gathered around the map table, the most ostentatious of whom was a golden-haired man sprawled in a chair, the left side of his teal frock-coat soaked in blood.

The last time Wylan had seen King Nikolai, he’d been tailored into his dual identity as Sturmhond, Ravka’s notorious privateer. Wylan hadn’t given the man much thought, more interested in whether Genya Saffin could restore his own face to normal.

Now, however, it was hard not to look at him. He’d assumed the portraits and Ravkan bills bearing the man’s likeness had been a flattering exaggeration of his looks, but if anything, they didn’t do the King enough justice.

The young woman next to him was equally striking, though if Wylan hadn’t heard her speak, he woundn’t have initially guessed her to be a woman at all. She was tall, with tawny skin and short-cropped russet hair. Her face was all carved angles and long lashes, but she wore an uncomfortable expression that verged on mutinous, as she shoved the King back into his chair.

“If you are staying still, it would be easier,” she said in thickly-accented Ravkan. “It is more difficult to heal a moving target.”

This had to be Hanne Brum. Wylan stared, trying to find the Druskelle Commander in the girl’s features, and failing.

“I’d listen, Your Highness,” Nina said, pushing between her friends. “She’s still in training. You wouldn’t want to lose dexterity in your shooting arm.”

“That sounds awfully close to sense for my liking. Can’t you make it sound more—ow!”

“Stay still,” Hanne said. “Or I’ll take out bullet with tiny Ravkan shrimp fork.”

“Ooh, you see, that’s so much more interesting. Yes! Wylan Van Eck. Jesper Fahey. And Inej, my deepest apologies for the little mishap in the harbor.” He said, gesturing to his shoulder. “Shot. I hope you didn’t get—yes. You’re soaked. Well.” He craned his neck, searching behind them and switching into Kerch. “I suppose if Brekker missed the incident, I needn’t fear immediate assassination. What’s kept him?”

“The Shu,” said Jesper. “They decided to pay us an early visit.”

Nikolai’s face went serious. “And where is he now?”

“Hopefully on a boat a day behind us with two hundred refugees and the rest of the Council of Tides.”

“Damn. I had hoped to put that devious brain of his to use. Come in, all of you. Sit. Tea? Wine? There’s probably enough of my blood here to fill a glass if you’re feeling vengeful.”

Wylan disengaged from Inej and sank onto one of the small velvet sofas, accepting the coffee Inej handed him. When they were all sitting, Nikolai demanded an explanation of everything that happened. Jesper gave the account with some help from Wylan.

“There were a few members of the Council of Tides on other ships,” Wylan said. “But none of them were part of the discussions. I think all of those were involved with the fallback to The Irinia.”

“So we can depend on neither Brekker nor a good portion of the Council of Tides.”

“Kaz will be here,” Inej said, speaking with a conviction that eased some of the stress still tight in Wylan’s chest. “He’ll find a way.”

“Personally, I agree with you,” Nikolai said. “I’m not, however, prepared to risk the future of my kingdom on something I only hope to be true.” A door slid open at the rear of the room. “Ah,” he said, voice darkening. A subtle tension crossed his features. “Zoya. I’m thrilled to see you. Alive. Healthy. Not battling Kher Gud in the sky above a naval encounter.”

“Those insects?” she said, lip curling. “They are no more danger to me than a fly. You, however, seem to have taken a sting.”

“And ruined my favorite coat.”

Jesper frowned. He reached out, touching the discoloration, and pulled the blood stains out with a flex of his fingers. A clench of his fist, and the rents in the wool closed themselves, flattening out to a crisp, perfect shade of blue-green.

Nikolai looked delighted. “Now that is handy,” he said, then looked up at Zoya. “Are you saying this entire time, I could have had David mending my clothes?”

“Have you seen David’s clothing?” Nina asked. “I wouldn’t trust him with a sock.”

“I hate to see a good bit of flash go to waste,” Jesper said.

“Indeed.” Nikolai clapped both hands to his knees. “We’ll need to redistribute our forces to account for the possibility of fewer Tidemakers. Wylan, Jesper? I wonder if the two of you would accompany me to my research facility near Os Alta. I’d like to put your talents to use.”

Wylan perked up. A research facility? He’d expected them to travel to the palace, with its grounds so close to the Little Palace. He’d expected it, braced for it, told himself a thousand times that there was no way after four years that Kuwei had not moved on to some other target for his affections, but...

“Is that where you worked on the tanks?” Jesper said, leaning forward.

“It is,” Nikolai said. “And it’s where we’re working on the cure for jurda parem. We think we have a form that works, but the administration of it has proved...problematic.”

“I had some thoughts about that,” Wylan said. “A way to convert it into a kind of gas without requiring too much heat. Jesper and I tested it, and I think it could work. But it needs some tweaks. And testing.”

“Perfect,” Nikolai said. “We’ll leave in the morning. There are rooms for you all. Mr. Van Eck—are you still in favor of lending your ships to Ravka?”

Wylan nodded. “Most aren’t outfitted as military vessels, but they should be able to do the work of moving supplies and soldiers.”

Nikolai stood, and the look he gave Zoya on his way out was thick with a meaning Wylan couldn’t translate. The Queen merely tossed her head, arms folded. “Nina,” she said. “Take your friends to their quarters. I will speak with Hanne for a time.”

Wylan had no idea what Zoya Nazyalensky might have to say to the daughter of Yarl Brum, but he was too tired to make himself care. They followed Nina out, down more hallways and up a smaller, winding staircase to a residential wing of the palace.

“They gave both of you rooms,” Nina said to Wylan and Jesper. “But don’t worry—there’s a door between them in case you get lonely.”

“You know what that means,” Jesper said, nudging Wylan with an elbow.

Wylan hummed tiredly. “Eating bed and sleeping bed,” he said.

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

Nina stopped, rounding on them, her mouth open. “You have a sleeping bed and an eating bed? A bed you sleep in and a bed you use specifically to be served decadent meals and late-night desserts?”

“So you don’t have to sleep in crumbs,” Jesper said.

“I need a sleeping bed,” she said. “All this time, I thought every bed was an eating bed. I’ve been doing this wrong my entire life.”

As the two prattled on, Wylan glanced down, catching the distant look on Inej’s face. He reached for her arm, looping it through his. “He’s going to be fine,” he said.

“I know,” she replied, her dark eyes still distant. She was silent for a moment, and Wylan waited, letting her pass through the moment, decide what she wanted to say. “He’s just not here.”

Wylan felt slightly guilty for having Jesper at his side, for knowing that Nina had Hanne—whatever they were or were becoming. Inej would go to her room alone tonight, aching for a companion she hadn’t seen in half a year. It was difficult to know how to think of the two of them. They were a couple in some ways. He’d seen only the barest of touches between them, but their intimacy was clear in the silent communication, in the way they always seemed to know what the other was thinking.

Before Jesper, he wasn’t sure he would have understood it. But he did.

He wondered if there was an empty room beside Inej’s, connected by a door that would not open, at least tonight.

He wasn’t even sure they were lovers. They loved each other, that was clear. But he’d never seen them flirt or murmur to each other when they thought no one was looking. They’d never kissed, not in public, and Wylan had trouble even imagining what that would look like. The closest they’d come had been two years ago, late one evening at the Van Eck estate, when Kaz had agreed to deal a card game for a party comprised of Jesper, Wylan, several of their friends in both the Dregs and the university, and Wylan’s mother. Maria Hendricks, as it happened, was just as good at cards as she was at painting, and Wylan suspected Kaz had explained to her the mechanics of card-counting in a brief conversation at the drinks cart.

There had been a pause in the game as everyone argued over a new rumor about the price of silk, when Wylan had shaken his head and caught, through a veil of pipe smoke and dim lights, Inej’s trim figure passing behind Kaz’s chair. She’d laid a hand on his shoulder, and with his dealing hand deftly passing out cards to the arguing players, Kaz had caught her fingers in his free hand.

Wylan had felt a strange, giddy desire to cheer as—unbelievably—Kaz drew lifted her knuckles to his lips, kissing her hand. The next moment, she melted away into the shadows, vanishing for the remainder of the evening.

How many surreptitious moments like that had they all missed?

When they arrived at their rooms, Wylan bent on impulse to kiss Inej’s cheek. “If you need someone to talk to,” he said.

She smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

Then she was off with Nina, arm in arm, chatting in low tones about how Nina might decorate her new eating bed.

Inside, Jesper was already pulling off his jacket. It was black, but the cut was flashy, embroidery of gold laurels showing his connection to the Van Eck estate. Wylan liked seeing him adopt the symbols of his family. It felt almost like the Dregs tattoo, a way of showing who he trusted, and where he belonged.

But there was a dark look on Jesper’s face as he glanced at the window, through which the packed harbor was still visible, despite the deepening night.

“Hey,” Wylan said, moving toward him. “Kaz made it.”

Jesper nodded. “I know,” he said. “It sounds crazy, but I think I’d know if he didn’t.”

Wylan reached out, his fingers joining Jesper’s on the buttons of his waistcoat. “It’s not crazy.”

Jesper nodded, watching their fingers, drawing his down the backs of Wylan’s hands as he took over unbuttoning the vest. Wylan had to believe it was alright. The world would be a much more terrifying place without Kaz Brekker in it.

“Think you’ll sleep?” Jesper asked.

Wylan was exhausted, but his whole body vibrated with stress in a way that made him feel unexpectedly jittery. “Probably not for a while.”

Jesper’s hands moved to the messy neck cloth at Wylan’s collar and tugged apart the knot. They stood in silence, quietly peeling away wool and brocade like layers of responsibility and stress and worry. At last, they stood in shirtsleeves, and Jesper’s long fingers moved to Wylan’s face, tilting his head up, and bumping their noses together.

“If we’re going to be awake anyway.”

Wylan couldn’t help smiling, nudging the bridge of Jesper’s nose with his. It didn’t take much for the sharpshooter to turn his insides into something unstable, likely to melt or combust with the right catalyst. Now, as one of Jesper’s hands curved around his nape, Wylan’s felt that reaction heat through him. He reached for Jesper’s waist, pulling him in.

Jesper kissed him, warm and deep, and Wylan had to loop his fingers in his gun belt to keep himself from staggering back. The slow caresses of Jesper’s tongue left the sting of bourbon behind, interrupted by the real, lovely sharpens of gentle teeth.

Jesper’s hands moved south, brash and confident, seizing Wylan’s rear in a firm grasp. Wylan gave a single, delighted laugh before Jesper lifted him off his feet and he had no choice but to sling his legs around the sharpshooter’s hips, right above his gun belt. He felt his back meet the chill of the wall beside the window, and an exhale eased over his vocal cords like the soft touch of a bow.

Jesper let go, pinning Wylan in place with his body, and Wylan felt the shift of that gun-belt, heard the thud of it in the chair by the window. He sucked in a breath, some vague statement about disarming him floating on his tongue, when a yawn cracked open his jaw.

He coughed, fingers clenching in Jesper’s shoulders, and met his gaze with a soft laugh of embarrassment.

“I hope that wasn’t a review,” Jesper said.

“You know it’s not.”

“Need to sleep after all?”

Wylan shook his head, arms tightening around Jesper’s neck. “I’m thinking too hard to sleep.”

“Thinking?” Jesper leaned in, nudging Wylan’s chin upward. “That sounds unhealthy.” Then his soft, perfect lips melted every nerve at the join of Wylan’s jaw and throat. Wylan heard himself make a high, soft noise, and twisted his fingers into the embroidered white collar of Jesper’s shirt. Why the hell was he still in a shirt? That needed to change.

But Jesper had his own goals, and he didn’t seem to care that they were both still dressed. His hand burned on the small of Wylan’s back, the other gripping tight behind his knee, holding him in place. Anticipation bloomed in Wylan’s belly, memory and desire flushing through his nerves, and he was already gasping before Jesper ground his hips against Wylan’s.

They both groaned, hands going frantic, tugging shirts from trousers even as they ground against each other. By the time Jesper twisted them around, they were both naked to the waist up, and Wylan’s cock ached with glorious, awful pressure.

Jesper spilled him backwards onto the bed, standing between his knees, hands already working at Wylan’s belt.

“You know, you’re my favorite distraction,” he said, and Wylan was proud of how breathless Jesper sounded. “And even if I fall somewhere below sheet music and strontium chloride on your list, I know for a fact you left those other things on the ship, so I happen to be the best you’ve got available.”

Wylan snorted, lifting from the bed as Jesper’s fingers curled over his waistband and pulled trousers and underthings down over his hips. “Give yourself credit,” he said, sounding only slightly drunk on desire. “You’re above strontium chloride.”

Jesper grinned, and went for Wylan’s left boot. “Not sheet music, though?”

Wylan bit his lip, but failed to restrain his grin. “Don’t stretch your luck.”

Both of Wylan’s boots pulled free, and he knew Jesper must have used Fabrikation to expedite the process. Then Jesper dragged both hands down Wylan’s thighs, gently clawing his trousers down his legs. He kissed the inside of Wylan’s knee, warm hands making wide, paths back up his legs, over his hipbones and chest.

Gooseflesh seized on Wylan’s skin as Jesper leaned over him, tall enough to keep his feet on the ground and still rest his elbows on either side of Wylan’s head. He felt the mattress creak on either side of his legs as the sharpshooter’s knees pressed in.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Jesper said, gray eyes like sun-warmed silver.

“That sounds good,” Wylan said, fingers trickling down Jesper’s sides. No, he couldn’t quite reach the buttons on his trousers.

“Then,” Jesper continued, his thumbs moving over Wylan’s cheeks. “I’m going to do a lot of other things that make you giggle nervously when I say them out loud.”

Wylan huffed a laugh and closed his eyes. “Right. Sure. Carry on.”

“And then-”

This was ridiculous. “Stop talking and fuck me, Jes.”

The warm rail of Jesper’s erection gave a sudden jerk against Wylan’s thigh. He opened his eyes to see Jesper staring down at him, lips parted in surprise.

Wylan lifted his eyebrows. “Unless that wasn’t what you had in mind?”

“Oh,” Jesper said. “No, it—it definitely was. I just wasn’t...”

“Expecting bluntness?” It was very hard to keep a straight face with Jesper gazing at him in such befuddled wonder. “Did you need me to repeat myself?”

A grin spread over Jesper’s face. “Hell. I might.”

Wylan rolled his shoulders, sinking back into the warming bedclothes. “You’ll have to earn it, then.”

Jesper’s grin curled, his eyes heating with a kind of excitement that made Wylan’s breath catch, a tightening of desire clenching through his crotch.

“Gladly,” Jesper said, his face close, his expression dark and wicked.

Before Wylan could decide whether he wanted to lift up and capture those soft, perfect lips, Jesper hooked his arm under Wylan’s knee and flipped him onto his belly. He gave an ungainly sort of yelp, then laughed, pushing up onto his elbows. He glanced over his shoulder, watching as Jesper, looking archly pleased with himself, deftly freed the buttons on his trousers.

“Nothing to see here merchling,” Jesper said.

“I disagree,” replied Wylan. From this vantage, there was quite a glorious amount of Jesper on display, all that gorgeous skin and long, furrowed muscle. He let his eyes take a long drink before Jesper gave him a light slap on the rear.

“Eyes ahead.”

Wylan rolled his eyes, but indulged him. Jesper had made far more ridiculous and embarrassing requests. Warm hands found the small of his back, kneading gentle circles. Wylan sighed, dipping his head to his forearms. That kind of touch was always a good place to start, easing tension, reminding his body of all the good things it could feel. He let his eyes close, his brain recalibrate to senses other than sight.

Jesper leaned over him, the warmth of his body radiating near Wylan’s back. He felt warm breath on his nape, then the damp heat of Jesper’s mouth. With that single touch, every nerve in his body came alive and curled in desire. He whispered something that might have been a curse or a prayer, and felt Jesper’s grin against his skin, the almost reverent way his hands came to Wylan’s shoulders, stroking down his rib cage.

The next kiss was an inch lower, and followed by the hot drag of Jesper’s tongue. He worked his way down Wylan’s spine, hands preceding him. At the base of his spine, he gripped Wylan’s hips and tugged, encouraging him to lift onto his knees. He complied readily, eagerly, his body trembling as his memory supplied a hundred suggestions for what Jesper might do.

The position was vulnerable, the room unfamiliar, and part of his mind told him he should have been humiliated by being this weak to another person. But he wasn’t. Every cell in his body felt alive, and as Jesper’s hands moved up the backs of his thighs, squeezing and kneading his thumbs into sensitive grooves and hollows, he found he didn’t care about shoulds. The voice in the back of his head that had made him feel small for so long held no power over him.

“How’s it going, Merchling?” Jesper said, his voice vibrating up Wylan’s spine. Before Wylan could scrape his dispersed thoughts together into some kind of sentence, Jesper chuckled. “That well already? I guess distraction’s good for you.”

Then Jesper’s fingers were pushing inside him, slick with some compound of oil and moisture he’d Fabrikated together. Leave it to Jesper to make one of his first points of study as a Grisha how to make a form of instant lubrication. At least it worked, and didn’t necessitate the awkward fumble or discomfort of being unprepared.

She Wylan’s hands fisted in the covers. He whimpered, pressed his forehead hard into the mattress, trying to keep still as Jesper worked in maddening strokes, easing him open. But his body knew what it wanted, and despite his best efforts, he thrust himself back, trying to drive Jesper’s fingers deeper. He had long fingers—he could reach. He’d pushed Wylan over the edge with those hands more times than he could remember.

“Easy, Wy,” Jesper said, voice annoyingly steady. But he took pity, twisting his wrist, crooking his fingers to get the perfect angle. Wylan heard himself whining, couldn’t control his hips pressing back desperately, wanting that touch. Jesper breathed out a curse, his free hand coming to the nape of Wylan’s neck and pinning him there to the mattress. “Stay still,” he growled.

And that did not help at all. It only made it worse. Wylan’s knees parted more, opening himself up, and Jesper groaned, and finally drove his fingers in deep, rubbing hard, merciless circles over that hub of pleasure.

Wylan bit off a cry. Felt Jesper’s hand move from his nape to his hair, gripping tight into his curls. He felt the pressure in his cock build, the pleasure coming from somewhere far deeper than he could bring it on his own. It crescendoed, tension stretching thin and sharp.

He wanted to pull together words, something to describe the way his body felt like a violin string under a well-rosined bow, to explain that what he wanted—all he wanted—was to slam his hands on the suspended chord of his moment and play it out, to hear and feel the resolution of Jesper sinking into the core of him, moving like he could crack him open and spill the music free.

“Jes-“ he gasped.

The fingers dragged free, and Wylan was left with a sudden, shuddering emptiness. He shuddered, gripping the blankets, bewilderment and a sort of desperate fury rose in him.

“Have I earned it yet?” Jesper said. Wylan felt the shocking heat of Jesper’s thigh coming up to brace his own. Fingers tightened and relaxed in his hair, drawing his head up slightly. Wylan felt Jesper settling his hips behind his, felt the press of him against his entrance as Jesper lined himself up.

“Say it, Wy,” Jesper said, moving his hand from Wylan’s hair to his shoulder, bracing him.

“Jesper-“

“The deal is the deal, Merchling.”

“Please, Jes...

“I seem to remember you saying something else,” Jesper said, but he was trembling with the effort of holding back. He pressed against Wylan’s entrance, pushing gently inside through the controlling grip of his fist. “I remember it being more like ‘shut up and fuck me’.”

Wylan laughed again, dizzy, furious. “I said stop talking,” he corrected. “Stop talking and fuck me.”

“That’s right,” Jesper said. “You were more polite. Fortunately,” and he tightened his hold on Wylan’s shoulder, pulling him back as he strained forward, sliding deep in a single thrust. “I’m a mannerless delinquent.”

He proved it.


	5. Suspicions Confirmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nikolai deals with the most frightening version of Zoya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter, mostly for plot reasons...but it still makes me happy.
> 
> I’m working on an Inej chapter next, so stay tuned and share with your friends. :) The comments so far are really helping me to bear working at the hospital right now. Yes, this is a shameless plea for attention and praise. I need the support right now. <3

It had been everything Nikolai could do to keep himself civil before heading down the back passage to his suite. The suspicion that had plagued him for weeks had reared its demonic head today, sending cold fear through his veins like poison. Fear for the future of his country, for the woman he’d almost lost to the needs of political arrangements, but at last managed to marry. He’d known her strength and ruthless leadership would serve Ravka better than a princess from Shu, or another loan from the Kerch

They’d gotten the Kerch money anyway, he reflected, shucking the newly-repaired frock coat, and rolling his slightly-less well-repaired shoulder. Ravka had profited from the tragedy that befell Kerch, something he’d have felt far worse about if the Kerch themselves hadn’t offered up the bargain debt forgiveness in exchange for opening the country to refugees. Ships for the navy to fight back the Fjerdans, able-bodied men, women, and Grisha for the first and second armies--all in exchange for the promise of aid when it came time to take the Kerch archipelage back from the Shu.

And he had Zoya. Every cruel, ruthless, beautiful inch of her--a woman he trusted above anyone, who’d seen the worst of him, watched him descend nearly into hopelessness, and slapped him hard enough to wake him up. He’d thought she would do anything to ensure the future of Ravka.

But she had denied his request that the Queen keep a clear profile at the palace, since he would be defending the refugee ships as Sturmhond, and flown off to fight alongside him. Normally, that wouldn’t have bothered him at all. She was the best ally he could want, and if there were few joys in life more satisfying than watching her demolish enemies. But if his suspicions were correct…

Nikolai sighed. He felt grave. He felt weary and angry and likely to draw his pistol on the next person who asked him to make a decision. His head felt heavy with the weight of a hundred calculations he’d hoped to partially siphon off onto another mind. A devious mind, true, but an effective one. Even that had gone to hell.

He could admit, part of him had been relying on Brekker’s presence to lighten the load. He didn’t care that the master thief would pay himself in the secrets of Ravka’s court. If they lost to the Fjerdan-backed pretender, or the Shu invaders, those secrets would be worthless anyway. Anyone who could get a team in and out of the Ice Court, mastermind a successful operation to extract Kuwei Yul-Bo from beneath the noses of four countries,  _ and _ plot the final stand of a nation when its own government had taken its resources and run? Well, that was a man to get on his side.

He didn’t care what the master thief stole at this point, as long as he made sense of some of the logistical nightmares and let Nicholai get back to what he was good at: fighting.

And he couldn’t forget the moment he’d parted with the thief, the request Brekker had made of him to settle Nikolai’s debt.

“Two suli acrobats, middle aged. Family name is Ghafa. They would have lost a daughter to slavers three years ago, off the coast of Os Kervo. If you make it back to Ravka, find them and put them on a ship to Ketterdam. She’ll be waiting for them.”

Nikolai had felt his eyebrows lift. Of all the things he’d expected from the Bastard of the Barrel, it hadn’t been this. “The suli girl from last night?” he said. Part of his heart had gone hot with fury, thinking of slavers pillaging his coastline. The spy who’d slipped through their window had a kind of stillness to her that reminded him of Tolya.

She’d looked almost shocked at the sight of Zoya, and the two had given each other a strange, tense nod that he hadn’t realized until later was in recognition of something shared. They had the same thick, dark lashes, and black hair, and though Zoya’s skin was a few shades lighter, her eyes a startling sapphire, there was enough resemblance between them to have claimed family.

It wasn’t until later, when digging for information that might be used if Brekker ever decided to come for something of Nikolai’s, that he understood how much more the two women had in common. Their beauty--and, he couldn’t deny it, their Suli heritage--had been used as an excuse to dehumanize them. Sold to men for the sake of someone else’s purse, they’d sharpened steel in their souls into something deadly, and fought back.

He’d decided not to use the girl against Brekker. He’d find another way to motivate the boy, if necessary, but he couldn’t let himself be the kind of man who dehumanized her again.

But the whole affair had given him some insight into what kind of man Kaz Brekker was. Brutal, brilliant, and as practical and ruthless as Zoya, but willing to trade in a favor from a king to reunite Inej with her family.

Nikolai had worked with worse.

He felt the drop of air pressure, the popping in his ears as Zoya opened a secret entrance to their suite, and marched inside with a near-literal crackle of lightning haloing her head. Her hair was a dense stormcloud, and Nikolai felt the competing desires to demand an explanation for her reckless behavior and to sink his hands into that glorious mane just to feel the shock.

She saved him the trouble. “You can unclench that royal jaw of yours, moy tsar,” she said, shucking the cloak from her sapphire blue kefta. “I didn’t come for a fight.”

“Nonsense,” Nikolai said, watching her kick her slippers into the corner of the room and yank off her gloves. “You bend toward battle like a flower toward the sun.”

“Today it’s raining,” she said, and turned toward him.

He never pretended immunity to her beauty, though it hadn’t been what won him. Right now, she was glorious from her use of power. She should have looked like a Saint, descending upon him with ruthless intent. Instead, her eyes were defiant sapphire daggers, glaring furiously from behind a shimmer of…

Saints, was Zoya crying?

Nikolai was on his feet in an instant, taking her arms in both hands, his head light with incandescent rage at whoever, at whatever…

Incredibly, she bent her head to his shoulder, and her fingers curled into his shirt, clenching into fists. He tugged her into him, at a loss for what more comfort he could offer than to hold her against him, and give her a safe place to fall apart. “Zoya,” he murmured, and cupped the back of her neck, static crackling across his fingers. “Tell me who to exile, maim, torture, behead, or subject to Tolya’s recitations.”

She didn’t scoff. She didn’t glare. Nikolai began to panic. He cupped her cheek, turning her face up to look at him. Her eyes blazed with enough rage to evaporate a fjord, but there were tears leaking from their corners, and the end of her perfect nose was red. “Tell me.”

“I spoke with Hanne,” she said.

“Hanne?”

_ If Hanne made you cry, this is going to get extremely awkward,  _ he thought.  _ If I punish her, Nina will punish me, then Tamar will punish Nina, and Genya will punish Tamar, and Nadia will punish Genya… _

“She confirmed what I suspected,” Zoya said. “What you suspected.”

Nikolai blinked and opened his mouth, hoping the right words would spill out.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t,” she said, disgust in her voice. “The way you’ve been coddling me.”

“Suggesting you stay at Os Kervo so the people won’t lose both monarchs in a single battle is hardly coddling, moy tsarina.”

“I am the most powerful Grisha in the second army. It is absolutely coddling.”

Nikolai couldn’t deny it. “So,” he said. “You’re saying that...I was right? You’re…”

She glared petulantly up at him, her fingers still locked in his shirt and preventing him from moving away, her eyes daring him to so much as think about kissing her and risk glorious electrocution.

“Yes,” she spat, and a fresh gleam of hot tears welled and spilled from her eyes. “I’m carrying the heir of Ravka. Flying off into battle is too much of a risk.” She sniffed. “And these damned hormones are turning me into a weeping fool!”

Nikolai tried not to smile, and failed. “So the person responsible for your tears—the one I threatened to exile, maim, torture, behead, or subject to Tolya’s recitations?”

She glared up at him. “Be ready for several hours of epic poetry, Nikolai. This is your fault.”

He grinned, terror and elation gusting through him as one. With no regard to personal safety, he bent and seized Zoya around the waist, lifting her up and crushing her against him. She felt no heavier, and the shape of her against him wasn’t perceptibly changed, but now that he knew… “This child is doomed!” he laughed, as she locked a leg around his hip to keep herself stable. “We’re going to be terrible parents!”

“You’re going to be terrible,” she sniffed. “I excel at everything.”

“Of course you do, my beautiful, ruthless wife,” he said, turning to catch her mouth against his. She tasted of salt and cold, crackling air, but she was warm, and kissed him back with enough force to turn his head. When they parted, he was giddy, stupid with the combination of soul-deep relief and terror. He was going to be a father. The Ravkan throne was secure. They were going to have to figure out how to protect an infant prince or princess from two countries who wanted them dead.

They were going to have to figure out how to protect Zoya. And if there was one certainty in the world, it was that Zoya Nazyalensky was going to hate being protected.

“Let’s see if you excel at not risking your life.”


	6. Twilight Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which fashion happens, and some dreams, and some discussions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, I know this is basically “inej gets to be pretty” but it does have some plot stuff attached. Also, I agree with Nina. Inej deserves to be pretty sometimes!

She woke with the ghost of Kaz’s breath on her palm, and for a moment, Inej was tempted to go back to sleep, to reclaim the moment where he was with her, and no matter what else was happening around them, at least she knew he lived.

It hadn’t been an entirely good dream. Her body was too tense, her heartbeat too irregular with stress to allow for easy sleep. These had been strange, scattershot dreams that dragged her from scene to scene with little coherence. Sometimes, she fought alone, knives flashing at unseen enemies. In others, she stood with Kaz, or a figure that she knew to be Kaz, but who wore the red mask of a Jackal, and spoke to her in Suli, his rock-salt rasp shivering through her mind.

“Never trust a mask. The people behind them are always trying to get away with something.”

“You’re in a mask, Kaz,” she’d replied.

The mouth of the jackal curled into a feral grin. “Am I?”

She was yanked into another scene, this one almost pleasant enough to distract her. His room at the Slat, the familiar sounds of brawls and laughter fading away two stories below. She was trembling, heart racing from a post-fight run across the rooftops of Ketterdam. Sea-water dripped on the floor. And Kaz was there, in his waistcoat and the clerk’s bands that kept his cuffs from dragging in the ink. He wore neither the jackal mask of a Suli seer, nor the black gloves that completed his personal mythology.

“We were in a fight,” she explained. “Sturmhond swung me in the water by accident.”

He flung something around her. At first, it was his coat, pulled from the back of his chair. Then it shifted into the blue cape of the Widow. His eyes were furious but clear, and before Inej could ask about the cape, he spoke.

“Tell Nikolai I don’t give a damn if he’s the king of Ravka. If he puts you in the drink again, I’ll tie him to the keel of one of Wylan’s ships.”

“Wylan wouldn’t let you.”

“Then I’ll tie him to The Wraith.”

“I wouldn’t let you.”

He either didn’t believe her, or was more offended by the danger she’d been in than the relatively minor injuries she’d sustained. His hands flexed on the edges of the cape, and he had that look on his face, the one somewhere between stubborn and murderous. She loved its familiarity. She wanted to smooth it away.

Inej reached for his cheek, felt his jaw press warm and slightly rough against her hand. He turned his face, breathing into her palm. It looked like he couldn’t decide whether to kiss it, or bite. She’d have taken either.

“Kaz,” she said. “I’m fine.”

He tugged on the jacket, bringing her to him, and like any dream of falling, she woke at the moment of impact.

The rug on the floor of her quarters at Os Kervo did little to buffer the frigid marble. Someone had laid a fire in the massive grate before she’d come to bed last night, but no one dared enter Captain Ghafa’s room after she’d gone to sleep. After the first incident had ended with a startled maid, a smashed tea service, and one of Inej’s knives protruding from the back of a pearl-inlaid tray, it had been agreed that the Suli captain would ring for breakfast, hot water, or anything else she required once she was conscious enough to see who was coming through the door.

No one came to stoke her fire in the wee hours, and though her room was generously appointed, it grew cold as the tiny closet she’d occupied in the Slat. Actually, she reflected, it was probably colder, given how much farther north Os Kervo was than Ketterdam.

She’d formed a habit of dragging her quilt to the small settee, ringing for tea and breakfast as she brushed and braided her hair. Most mornings, she was finished by the time the maid entered, but today she found it difficult to shake the dream, and had to untangle and re-braid it twice before the Galena arrived with her tray.

“Thank you,” she said, hands halfway down her braid. The tray was heaped with eggs and sausage, tea, and a steaming slice of apple cake with sour cream. Her mouth watered.

“Would you like help?” Galena asked.

Inej looked up, thinking for one embarrassed moment that the young woman meant to feed her. Then she realized the girl was hovering by the brush, and gazing at Inej’s hair in almost the same way Nina looked at a stack of waffles. Inej glanced at the girl’s lovely crown of caramel braids and relaxed.

“If...it won’t be too much trouble?” Inej said.

“Of course!”

Galena chattered as she worked and Inej ate. She was grateful for the distraction, and secretly enjoyed the feeling of the soft bristles brushing at her temples, and the gentle tugs on her hair as the girl braided and twisted and tucked and pinned. It reminded her of mornings with mama, singing caravan songs as papa and her uncles and packed up the wagons.

When they were both finished, Galena handed her the small mirror from the vanity and Inej stared back in some surprise. She’d gotten so used to her usual style that it was strange to see her hair set in any way that showed it off. Tiny braids parted and joined like a net over the sides of her head, and gathered into floral shapes at the back, where the bulk of her thick braid had been twisted into a fuller-looking knot than Inej generally managed.

“It’s lovely,” she said, remembering to smile at the beaming girl.

“Thank you, miss. If anyone asks, let them know it was me. I’d dearly love to leave the kitchens.”

Inej, who’d been considering redoing the knot tighter, decided to leave it be. “Of course,” she said. “Thank you, Galena.” Then, because she felt a sudden rush of sympathy for the young servant, added, “I’d be happy to have your help any morning, if you’d like.””

Galena’s milk-bun cheeks went rosy in pleasure. “Oh, yes! I can bring some more pins tomorrow. Perhaps something to match your new shubek!”

Inej nodded, wondering whether she’d just gotten herself into a bargain she didn’t actually want. When Galena left, she dressed quickly, adding the fur-lined shubek Nina had insisted she buy when the first snow fell last week.

“I know you and Hanne both like your ‘practical clothes’, but you can’t keep walking around a palace looking like you just gutted twelve men on a slave ship,” she winked. “Even if you have.”

Inej had to admit, it was warm. Ankle-length, lined inside with black rabbit fur, the outside a twilight blue wool stitched in deep shades of purple and cornflower—it was both the most beautiful and the most expensive thing she’d ever owned. She’d refused the more glittery options Nina had made her try on, though it was fun to watch the sparkle of crystals and gold embroidery, to don the bright colors she’d once worn on the high wire and swings.

“What’s the fun of taking all that money off slavers if you don’t spend any of it on yourself?” Nina had asked.

Most of the money went toward paying her crew, keeping The Wraith supplied and sailing, and helping the captives find their ways home. But Inej still had plenty of her share of their Ice Court job’s haul socked away for safekeeping, and though the price of the shubak would have caused her mother to speak several saints names, she’d had the money. And Nina was right—when Inej wasn’t blending in with shadows, she was raising eyebrows in the palace at Os Kervo.

“They’re beautiful,” she’d said, shucking a teal and pearl surcoat with tawny fur trim.

“So are you!” Nina said. “And you deserve beautiful things. Lots of them. With sparkles.”

“I don’t need sparkles.”

“Have you ever considered that sparkles might need you?”

Inej only shook her head and grinned. Nina, her fun in danger of being spoiled, had turned to Hanne and gestured to Inej.

“Tell her she deserves beautiful and sparkly things.”

The Fjerdan girl had looked bored, absently petting a muff the size of a beer keg. “If she can deserve them faster. I was promised pirozhki, and so far it’s been all silk and sleeve-styles.”

Nina had planted both fists on her hips, but Inej grinned at Hanne, who smirked back.

“You both know me too well. Fine. I’ll be persuaded by food. But after pirozhki, we’re going to buy boots. Yours are falling apart.”

Inej had paid for her twilight colored shubak, and a pair of sealskin gloves in such a dark brown they were almost black. Now, hustling through the frigid courtyard toward the quay, she was grateful for the extra warmth over her clothes. Half of Wylan’s fleet had already departed for the naval base in the North, and the other half were busy being repaired or outfitted for travel to Novyi Zem and the Wanderin Aisle.

Tucked in a small berth near the end of the quay, The Wraith was undergoing its own repairs. All the glass in the stern windows had been blown out by a series of cannon balls, and the rudder had taken damage in the same set of blasts. She felt strange, striding toward her ship in her lovely shubak, her hair set like someone trying to be seen.

Specht, already awake and barking orders like a proper bosun, stopped short when she ascended the gangplank.

“Blame Nina,” she said. The old sailor shook his head.

“Looks nice, Captain.”

“At least it’s warm.”

A loud whistle from above drew her eyes to the cross trees, where Virina—her Kaelish sharpshooter and one of the first people whose chains she’d broken—was swinging her legs like a child on a fence.

“About time you cleaned up, Captain!” she hollered in Kerch. “Sturmhond can’t be the only privateer in fancy clothes!”

Inej grinned, but shook her head.

Specht gave a rumbling chuckle. “Hell, maybe I’ll get a frock coat. For morale.”

Inej went below, joining the rest of her crew in the process of preparing her boat for the team of Fabrikators the Ravkan crown had allotted to help. Hours passed, and she only realized it was well past noon when she straightened after shifting a sea chest from beneath the broken windows of her stateroom and found herself dizzy with hunger.

Then it was back into the palace and her room to wash up and bolt a few cabbage rolls before she was off to an afternoon meeting with the triumvirate, King Nikolai, Wylan, and Jesper.

She still wasn’t sure how they’d all managed to work their way into such company, but it felt important to be there. She had her own feelings about Ravka’s past, and the way her people had been treated, but Nikolai was a different ruler than the previous Lantsov kings. Perhaps he could rebuild the country into a kinder place for Suli.

Marrying one had certainly been a step in the right direction. Though Zoya didn’t seem particularly attached to that part of her heritage. The one time Inej had greeted her in Suli, she’d given her a look that might wither roses straight from the bush. Inej knew the queen was rude to everyone, but it still felt a bit like betrayal. With her position, she could do so much for the Suli.

Then again, perhaps she’d gotten this far by rejecting that part of herself.

Inej entered the cloistered war room silently, scanning the faces, reading the room on instinct. She could have slipped deeper into the shadows and listened, but she was here to take part in a discussion, not smuggle secrets.

She cleared her throat behind the towering bulk of the king’s massive Shu bodyguard. The mountain of muscle and Heart render power tensed, then turned his head.

“I’m never going to get used to this one,” he said. “Silence like that isn’t natural.”

“That would be Inej,” came Jesper’s voice.

Tolya stepped aside, revealing Inej as she slipped from the shadows and into the war room. Jesper’s face went blank.

“Oh...” the sound had been from Genya, who had paused, her fingers over a dish of delicately powdered sweets. Inej was startled by the turn of heads, the ripple of shocked faces, and suddenly wanted to melt back into the shadows. Had she managed to drip broth down her front? Or was the hairstyle meant for someone with more jewels and a lower body count?

“What’s the occasion?” Jesper said, leaning forward, looking precariously close to doing something overtly chivalrous at her expense.

“Winter,” Inej said, wishing she’d left the shubak in her room. She quickly took the seat between Nina and Genya, leaning back in search of a shadow that wasn’t there.

“I think winter is an excellent occasion,” the king said, grinning.

“Anything is better than the drab sailing clothes she usually wears,” Zoya said acidly. “Now can we get on with this meeting?”

“It’s just,” Genya said, cocking her head to the side. “Nevermind. Yes, let’s get on with it.”

Nikolai swirled his tea, looking into it as if disappointed to find it wasn’t something stronger. Some of his usual verve had drained away, the sun behind a cloud.

“There’s been a delay in my leaving for the Bog and Os Alta. I had intended to send Mr. Van Eck and Mr. Fahey ahead, but I had hoped an extra day or so might change our circumstances.”

He’d hoped Kaz would arrive—another leader to pull some of the disparate elements of their efforts together.

“We can’t delay further. David wrote back about your plans for an aeresolization device, Wylan, and he wants to make some prototypes. Mr. Fahey—I understand the idea of using jurda stalks came from your knowledge of the plant itself. Your background and your gifts as a Fabrikator will be invaluable. Genya and Tamar will accompany me, as previously discussed. However...” he glanced sideways at Zoya, and continued, “so will my wife, and Tolya.”

Nina stiffened. “Zoya, I thought you’d planned to-“

“Plans change, Nina,” snapped the queen. Then, she turned to Hanne. Sapphire gaze narrowed, she glanced between the girl and Nina. “You didn’t say anything?”

“No!” Hanne said. “You asked me to be silent, so-“

“Say anything about what?” Nina demanded. She looked aghast, staring at Hanne. “Did you keep a secret from me? I don’t know whether to be furious or proud!”

Hanne’s dark cheeks went even darker. “Of course I kept the secret!” she said furiously. “You’re the queen, and you asked me to!”

“Hmph,” said Genya. “That wasn’t the case with the last Queen of Ravka. Ask us all how we know.”

“Zoya will be returning to Os Alta to oversee the direction of the Second Army,” said Nikolai. “And I will travel between the capital and Os Kervo as needed to inspire, command, and otherwise rally our various forces.”

“Why?” Wylan asked. “There are more Grisha stationed at the coast and the southern border. It would make more sense for Queen Zoya to travel, so why did you change your mind?”

“Because she’s pregnant.” Inej said the words before she even quite put it together consciously. There was a subtle difference to the way Zoya was sitting, and she’d brushed her hand down the front of her Kefta twice since Inej had sat down. It would have looked like a nervous gesture to someone who didn’t know that Zoya Nazyalensy was incapable of getting nervous.

Imperous blue eyes turned to Inej. “Bravo, little acrobat. What rafters did you scuttle into to hear that news?”

“I didn’t need to,” Inej said. “You’ve developed a tell.”

She was pleased by Zoya’s furious look.

“ _Ama tariya sor poronayu_ , moy tsarina,” she said in Suli, and gave the queen a small bow.

“The blessing is to Ravka,” said Zoya. “I’m not looking forward to letting out all my dresses.”

Genya turned to Zoya, preparing to say something, when Tamar entered, her footsteps snapping.

“There’s a ship sailing upriver,” she said. “It’s battered all to hell, but there are Tidemakers keeping it afloat!”

Inej was out of her chair and past Tamar before anyone else could leave their chairs


	7. A Subtle Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a reunion does not go as planned

She ignored the convoluted palace hallways and took the window instead, shucking her shubak and racing across the newly-added fortifications to the river-side of the palace. Inej leapt from one scaffold to the next, aware that she was making herself visible to the guards. It didn’t matter. The only think that mattered was the tide of refugees debarking the dark galleon still securing its mooring lines to the quay.

She recognized it—a Zemeni vessel that Jesper had commissioned specifically to serve the area where his father’s farm produced. Aditi was emblazoned on its side in weathered gold. A slew of servants and guards had scrambled to man the registration tables and to bring the refugees food and water.

She spotted pale skin on the gangplank—a dark suit, a familiar uneven walk—and doubled her pace, eyes locked on his figure, willing him to look at her, to find her in the crowd like he always did. People flowed around him as he made a stern progress toward the wide stairs leading from the quay to the palace. Inej’s heart slammed.

“Kaz!” She called, but her voice was lost in the general clamor.

The stairway down to the quay was bordered by a pair of thick marble bannisters. He used it as partial cover as he started his climb, just the way she always did. She sped up, feeding on the glimpses of him in the crowd, his bone pale skin, the sparkle of wet sunlight off his crow’s head cane. He paused, and for just an instant she thought he’d found her.

But he was turning, looking back toward the galleon as if about to head back down. Had he forgotten something? Saints, what could be so important that he’d delay making himself known, seeing the king, seeing her? It didn’t matter. She’d catch him and whatever he’d forgotten, they’d go and get it together.

She ducked around a woman in olive drab juggling two bundles of blankets and there he was, in profile, his sharp jaw and dark eyes the same as ever.

“Kaz!”

He whipped around and caught her wrists an instant before she could grab his coat. From two steps above, she was almost tall enough to look him in the eyes. For a moment, he stared at her, expression tense, gaze flicking over her face and taking her in.

“Wraith,” he rasped.

“Kaz,” she said, and maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the days of worry, or the unsettled feeling she’d had all day, but tears rose hot and stinging in her eyes. Once, she’d have been horrified for him to see her cry, but what was the worst he could think—that she cared? He already knew that.

“Kaz,” she whispered again. The feel of those leather gloves was comforting, even if one wrist was crushed against his cane. She trembled with the need to touch him, to make sure he was alright and reassure herself that every inch of him was accounted for and within the healing capabilities of a few day’s food and rest.

She twisted her wrists and Kaz released her. Then, conscious of the people flowing around them like a boulder in a stream, she stepped down to the stair directly in front of him, her hands lifting to his chest, pressing against a familiar, now-rumpled waistcoat. His heart beat strong against her palm.

“I wasn’t sure you were coming,” she said, keeping her voice low, so only he could hear. “I didn’t know if you’d—Jesper said the water rose fast after the fourth tower fell.”

One gloved hand lifted to her arm, and he was looking at her now, something like realization flickering in his gaze.

“It did,” he said, gaze flicking around her face, then once over the rest of her, taking her in. He seemed reassured. Had he been worried for her too? “Fortunately, the Council of Tides were able to do their part. We hit some weather that was too much for our Squallers, but they kept the waves from capsizing us.”

No sarcasm. None of the acidic humor that usually coated Kaz’s words. Concern slid through Inej’s belly like an eel, and when he glanced up at the palace, she studied him closer. Saints, he looked exhausted. She could have used the dark circles under his eyes for cover, and he was sweating. Was it pain? His leg must be worse than usual.

Something tingled in the back of her mind. Then he looked back down at her, seemed to read the worry in her face, and gave a small jerk of his chin. She felt her brow pinch. What did he mean by that? Did he want her not to worry, or to save the questions for later? She was usually better at interpreting his looks, but it had been months since they’d seen each other. What if...

A new worry worked its way into her brain, one that sent her heart clenching, pushing the horrible, thick sap of hurt thought her chest. It flowed into her body, stealing breath from her lungs.

The bond between them was a fledgeling flame, shuttered from sight and brought out only when they were alone and safe. They sheltered it in cupped hands, fed it with trust and gradual progress—gloves laid aside, hair unbound, the brush of lips or a hand allowed to pull the knot from a tie—and each time she returned, it burned brighter inside her.

She loved him. She’d known that for a while, but lately it had felt less like walking through a trapped room and more like walking the high wire. Safe. Thrilling. Like she’d sprout wings at any moment and step into the sky. But what if something had changed? What if he no longer felt the same, and the wire beneath her feet were about to vanish.

She was lightheaded, aware of panic stealing her breath, aware that she was two seconds from some kind of drastic action. He was studying her, his eyes giving nothing away, and she wanted to scream. She wanted to run.

His hand circled her waist and pulled her to him, her cheek colliding with the knot of his tie. It wasn’t a hug. Not really. That was something Inej did, when she approached his chair at the slat and folded her arms around his shoulders, or snuck her hands beneath his coat in the cloakroom at the Crow Club. If he held her, it was a thing of defiance, fierce and too tight.

This was something different. He was tense against her, but her relief was too powerful for her to mind.

“I’m fine,” he said into her hair. She didn’t care. Her hands moved beneath his coat, checking for bandages padding out his shirt, waiting for the flinch if she encountered a bruise or pushed on a broken rib. She felt the ticking of his pocketwatch against her ribs. He didn’t move away and he didn’t flinch—he must truly be all right.

He was here, all the arcs and ridges of him, whole and undamaged beneath his coat. She should never have doubted him.

She looked up, aware of the unshed tears in her eyes and not giving a damn. Let him see what he meant to her. His eyes were hard, and she knew he’d likely snap at her later for revealing so much of their relationship to potential enemies, but his hand was on the small of her back, her belly pressed against his, and he wasn’t leaning away. He leaned his cane against the bannister, lifting his now-freed hand to her cheek. Need and anticipation rushed through her, and Inej barely tilted her head before his mouth was on hers.

The crashing heat of that kiss almost carried her away. His glove was warm, sliding back to cup her head, and she sank against him, surrendering her weight like he was her partner on he swings. He met it easily, grip shifting to brace her. He’d never kissed her like this—arm hooked behind her head, tongue making uncompromising demands against hers. It was enough to shock her through with heat, even in the freezing spit of Ravkan sleet.

For one hovering instant, she let herself believe that Kaz would—could—kiss her like that.

He should have found her in the crowd. He would have seen her distress and found some way to fight it back with a few ruthless words. He would have tucked his cane beneath his arm, rather than setting it aside.

That had been the tingle in the back of her head—the thing her heart and her body so desperately wanted to deny. She hadn’t snuck up on him successfully since the day they met.

And he didn’t kiss like this, all heat and dominance. He kissed like he fought, always moving, his lips a fist brushing her skin, his teeth a knife. He needed the time and the frustration of want to build a bridge over his walls. The last time he’d kissed her this fully, he’d had four glasses of Wylan’s most expensive whisky, half an hour tucked together in a dark nook in the Van Eck library, and they’d been alone.

Now, someone near them had started clapping, murmuring in Kerch, “Good for you, lad!”

Kaz would never kiss her in front of a quay full of strangers. He’d never even kissed her in front of their friends. There was only one conclusion she could make.

He had Kaz’s face and Kaz’s sharply tailored suit. His chest was sculpted in the same hard planes and furrows, his limp was exact, and the cane was either a very good replica or the real thing.

But he was not Kaz. So who was he? Someone with access to a tailor powerful enough to make him into an exact replica of the Bastard of the Barrel.And if the real Kaz Brekker wasn’t here, where was he?

Even as horror and fear rose inside her, Inej kept her jaw loose, her hands eager. She’d kissed lots of men and knew how to make them believe her desire. He moved deeper into the kiss, gloved fingers tightening in her hair, and she felt the pattern of it, understood the practiced rhythm of a thing studied and learned, rather than felt.

She let her hands roam, noting knives where Kaz didn’t keep them, the weight of his jacket off in several places where something heavier than lockpicks had been sewn into he lining. There were narrow blades at his thigh, beneath the wool trousers, strapped where he could reach them by sliding his hands into his pocket.

A distant part of her wondered if they’d broken this boy’s leg too. If they’d shaped the muscles of his thighs, the torn tendons in his knee—was he used to living with pain? Fighting with it?

She didn’t even know Kaz well enough to make him this perfect. In order to do that, they’d have needed the real thing. And of course, they’d have needed his clothes, his gloves, his cane...

They had him. Or they’d had him. Had they killed him? That would have been the smart thing to do. It’s what Kaz would have done.

Inej smiled against his mouth, felt him pause, wait for her question.

She didn’t ask one. She put Sankt Pietr in his neck, and pulled it away just as fast.

His hand spasmed in her hair. For an instant, the arm around her went rigid, Kaz’s bitter coffee eyes going wide with incomprehension. Those were his eyes, the shape and color exact in every way. His mouth, his nose, every scar and shadow in place. But it wasn’t him, and if she’d needed anything else to prove it, the sudden jab at her hip was enough.

She grabbed his hand, felt the end of a dart in his fist and yanked it out, knowing without needing to look that it had been poison. An assassin’s favorite weapon.

But who had it been meant for?

Inej tore herself back from Kaz’s arms, heart racing, watching in horror as blood pulsed from the wound in his throat. He fumbled a gloved hand up for it, but it was too late. His rigid body shuddered and dropped, first to a knee amid the throng, and then—when the gasps and screams began—to his side, sliding down several stairs, drawing a wide ribbon of blood.

He held his own neck, but blood was pooling out between his fingers.

Someone shouted for a Corporalnik. Someone else dropped to his side, clamping her hands over his, as if she could save him. His cane rolled, dropping down a single step.

No one had noticed her yet, the girl with the bloody knife, watching in trembling horror as the Kaz Brekker, the Bastard of the Barrel, bled out on the steps of the palace.

Then Jesper shoved past, dropping down beside the impostor, his face a mask of horror. He covered the hands of the girl trying to hold the lifeblood inside of Kaz, panic and disbelief at war on his face.

Someone grabbed Inej. Strong arms, but soft and needed.

“Inej! What happened? Inej!”

A cold tide washed over her, doubt crowding in with panic as the boy convulsed, blood smearing as he scrabbled at Jesper’s arm, trying to garble out words. What if she’d been wrong? What if it really was Kaz and he’d finally given up his trenchant belief that their relationship remain quiet?

Nina’s arms were around her, dragging her back, and Tamar bolted past, turning her wrist to halt the flow of blood.

It wasn’t true—logically, it couldn’t be—but the person dying in front of her had Kaz’s face, Kaz’s body, his dark brown eyes and pitch black hair. At the last moment, he twisted his head, somehow finding her eyes in the crowd, and she went still, horrified, and watched the life slip out of him.

That was when Inej began to scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, yes. I know. That was fast.
> 
> BUT COME ON. We knew it wasn’t going to take long.
> 
> And now the fun can begin. Bwahaha.
> 
> If you like this fic, and you think your friends would like it too, please give it a rec! :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kaz is a terrible sailor, but an awesome retirement planner.

“I will need you to secure those sails a bit faster, Mister Brekker.”

Azuke was fortunate that Kaz needed both hands to hold on to the straining line, and that he was out of ammo. The sheet jerked in the wind, and he couldn’t manage to get it tight enough to suit the Tidemaker.

The Phoenix was a double masted thing of beauty, once the Grisha had raised it from the sea. As promised, some ancient Fabrikator had preserved its white oak frame and pine deck against rot—her sails were stiff and fresh, her rigging tight and strong as sinews. Even the barnacles encrusting her hull had fallen away with a good blast of water without leaving behind much damage.

A crew of two could have manned her gaffe sails with a captain at the wheel. A cross-seas journey would need more than that.

“I hope you were a sailor at some point in your ancient life,” Kaz had said.

“And I hope you prove capable of taking direction,” said the tidemaker. “My first suggestion is putting on a shirt.”

Kaz, still in only trousers and a pair of muck-covered boots, resisted the urge to jab a furious hand toward the moonlit towers jutting from the distant, drowned city. “Afraid I packed light.”

The Tidemaker’s face curled in a satisfied smile. “Fortunately for you, I did not.”

When his eyes adjusted to the shadow belowdecks, Kaz found what amounted to an ancient Ravkan palace in miniature. Carvings and goldleaf surrounded two berths tucked on either side of the ladder, their quilts and linens undamaged by time. Tessellated designs were picked out on the walls of the galley, each tile smaller than a fingernail. They weren’t of Saints or kings or queens, but wild creatures and dark forests, Grisha and otkazatsya, serpents and firebirds.

He lifted his brows. “What were the Kerch offering, that you’d be willing to sink this thing?”

“A place free of men who hunted Grisha,” he said, then leaned on the ladder with a grunt and gestured at a trunk beneath one of the berths. “Voronik was about your size,” he gasped. Azuke was still injured, and though he looked nearly glowing in the aftermath of using his Grisha power, Kaz knew he must be drained.

As the old Tidemaker made a labor of ascending the stairs, Kaz pulled out the trunk, no longer surprised to find its contents dry and well-preserved. The style was...unfortunate. Kaz pulled out a black linen cossack shirt, its collar skewed to the side and surrounded by wide bands of blue and gold embroidery. Kaz unearthed horrible poppy red trousers, a pair of shapeless wool boots, and a pair of long, antler-handled fishing knives.

The blades were plenty sharp. He imagined delicately carving paper-thin slices of flesh off the assassin’s body and serving it to the Shu General with a side of horseradish and smiled. He might look like a colorful figure out of Ravkan folklore, but at least he’d be armed like one.

The felted boots were too loose in the ankle to hide his picks, and the trousers had no pockets. He tied the drawstring, gaze picking through the rest of the items in the trunk.

Long woven sash. A wide leather belt with sheaths for the daggers in back, and there—the wool pouch that hooked onto the belt and had probably served as a sort of external pocket.

Actual damned purse-strings. He couldn’t allow the irony.

Kaz ignored the sash and snagged the leather belt, which was wider than his palm and worked in some sort of religious symbols. He had to punch a new hole in the strap to get it snug enough, but it would do better to conceal his picks than some highly-impractical belt pouch, and at least this way he wouldn’t look like he was meant to drop into a squat dance at any second.

Sort of. Why the fuck did a sailor need so much embroidery?

Now, hauling on the line with all his strength, he thought he might prefer to try his hand at the prisyadka, bad leg and all.

How had Inej done it? He remembered the last time he’d sailed with her, the way she’d managed to tighten the sail by jamming her foot against the metal tie on the deck and hooking her body around the line. She’d heaved back, using weight and momentum, nearly slamming her head into the deck. Another crew member had pulled the slack.

Kaz hooked his arm around the line and jammed his good foot against the tie, then threw his full weight backwards toward the deck.

To his surprise and relief, it worked.

“That’s more like it, Brekker!” Called Azuke. “Your woman would be proud. Now do it again!”

Kaz barely managed to retrieve the trailing end of the line and drag in the slack. He spent a satisfied few moments heaving and tightening the line, imagining what Inej might do if she’d ever heard the Grisha call her Kaz’s woman.

Another part of him liked the phrase, liked the images it brought to mind of her warm body against his, her hair spilling around his shoulders. Maybe Inej wouldn’t mind being called that, if it were equal. If it meant he was every bit as much hers. If it wasn’t so much a declaration of ownership than an acknowledgement of how much of themselves they’d give to each other.

Not enough. At least, he hadn’t given her nearly as much as he’d meant to. He’d made gestures—her contract, the ship, the sundering of operation after operation of slavers and scum that deserved worse than what he gave them—but he hadn’t said the right things. He’d fought and killed and bled and almost died for her a hundred times over, he’d mastered the waters and the echo of Jordie’s voice in his head, he’d watched her leave, biting his tongue because he’d known that to ask her to stay would hurt them both.

She was a girl with wings, who needed to be free. And he would die before he took that away from her.

Kaz tied off the sail. His hands were raw and red, blistered without the protection of his gloves, and he couldn’t stop a stagger against the railing. His leg was on fire. His muscles hurt, and he hoped to all hell they didn’t need to tack any time soon. If they did, he’d have to reposition the sail.

Wind snapped the canvas tight, and Kaz sank to the narrow bow, leaning his back against the capstan. The anchor chain dug into his back, but he didn’t care. Exhaustion and pain throbbed in every cell, but he was too furious to sleep. The need for information chewed at the edges of his mind like a dog.

Who were the Shu after? Why had they chosen him, and not someone easier to catch?

Probably precisely because I’m not easy to catch, Kaz thought. And no assassin could talk as much as Jesper or pretend to be as mind-bendingly pure pure as Wylan. And they’d notice if one or the other of them weren’t right.

And if they had a mole in the Council of Tides, they’d have made sure the backup plan was initiated, so Kaz could be separated from Jesper and Wylan long enough to get to Os Kervo, maybe even Os Alta, if he could avoid anyone who knew him very well.

The King? Possibly. The queen? Maybe. Or, maybe they were banking on the King sending the assassin to the Golden Bog to get a look at his new weapons systems. Hiram Shenk had made a pretty fortune off the submersibles. It might have been a lot prettier if Kaz hadn’t stolen the plans and sold them back to Nikolai at a reasonable fee before the Councilman’s engineers could copy more than a page or two of the design.

It had been enough for Shenk’s people to create a passable dupe in a matter of months—too embarrassed to admit to the King of Ravka that they’d lost his generous gift after only two days of arriving back in Ketterdam.

Nikolai’s note had been especially pleasing.

You dastardly little mastermind. I’ll give you thirty.

Thirty acres in west Ravka, south of Os Kervo, tucked between the mountains and the sea. Somewhere with a cove deep enough to berth a ship, and craggy rocks towering over sandy inlets, where a cottage could huddle against wind and storm. Nikolai had put his people on it and traded the deed for the three pages of plans he hadn’t sent along as proof.

It’s a few miles from one of the caravan roads. I’ll assume your forgiveness if my assumptions are incorrect.

They were not. Kaz had told himself he didn’t know why he was trading for land in a war-riddled country he never intended to live in, but he’d known too well what to ask for. A possibility, a backup plan, an investment for the future.

He imagined Inej standing by the water, barefoot and smiling, waving toward a caravan rolling up over the rocky hill. He imagined a small house, comfortable and secure, with enough room to shelter visiting friends and family. A place to rest. To escape. To lick her wounds between battles.

A place where he might find her more and more, if the years went on and they were both free and living.

He’d never imagined himself in that place. But now, leaning his head back against the cold metal of the capstan, he gazed up through the rigging and at an overcast sky, slim on stars, he could admit there were places he’d subconsciously left unimagined. There was space for another chair by that fire, and the crags above bit into the sky like peaked gables and uneven roofs, enough to keep a city boy from feeling too exposed.

He’d never imagined where she might sleep, nor given thought to the fact that he’d kept the house to a single story, easier to move around in with a bad leg that only got worse in cold weather.

He couldn’t see himself there right now, with so much fire still burning inside him, so much need for action and information and work that fed his mind. He couldn’t see her there for any extended period either, only between seasons, when the sea was too treacherous for The Wraith. He’d imagined it was a place she might come to roost, when her thirst for vengeance was slaked and her wings had grown tired.

Kaz had always known he’d die in Ketterdam. It was his city, his ship to go down with, and yet he’d somehow managed to escape it in the only way possible that let him live.

And why? For the noble cause of saving Kerch’s people, for the privilege of taking part in a war he’d only distantly cared about?

No. He’d done it for Jesper. For Wylan. For the Dregs. But he could have done everything for them and still faced down an oncoming tide with bitter rage burning in his heart, ready for the harbor waters to finally come and claim their lost child.

But he’d thought of Inej, of her laugh and her big dark eyes, of the steel inside her that had lodged itself in his heart like a knife he couldn’t remove, and he’d wanted to live. Not for vengeance or fear, but for her. He needed to see her again before he died, needed to tell her he still wanted her, that he would always want her, until he got too old to fight or climb stairs, until she was ready to come to anchor and he was content to scheme by a fire with his leg stretched out, scribbling insults back and forth with aging kings and Grisha sharpshooters.

He needed to tell her he’d made a place for them, when that happened, if she wanted to take it. Not for now, but for someday, when their hearts no longer aimed at bigger, more dangerous lives.

He needed to tell her that he would always want her. And he would, just as soon as he found the imposter and tested the sharpness of his new fishing knives.

“Look alive, Kaz Brekker,” called Azuke. “We‘ve caught the wind, and she is an unbridled thing.”

Kaz squinted at the boom jerking at the line like a tethered beast. “You have no idea.”


	9. The Mess Before Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nina surveys the mess they’re left with, and Genya has an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long, guys! It’s been a hell of a week at the hospital and I didn’t have the spoons to write. But here it is! The finished chapter! Full of plot!
> 
> (Also, if you’re curious about Kaz’s shirt from the last chapter, this is what I’ve put him in. Bwahaha. https://www.rusclothing.com/russian-clothing/traditional/kosovorotka-shirts/russian-shirt-black-cossack/ )

Nina didn’t pretend she hadn’t occasionally wanted to strangle Kaz Brekker, but she’d certainly never truly wished the thief dead. Lightly roasted, throttled, humbled, and generally slapped around his devious head with a lake trout, yes. But she’d watched comrades in arms die, and she would never wish on Inej the crucible of pain that Matthias’s death had put her through.

Which was why the sight of him hemorrhaging on the stairs of the western palace, Inej standing over him with a bloody knife, had been particularly disturbing.

One moment, she’d been ready to cheer—or scream, she wasn’t certain how to react tot he sight of Kaz kissing anyone, it seemed so skin-shudderingly wrong—and the next moment everything had been bewilderingly wrong. Kaz was dying. Inej had jammed a knife in his throat, and now was standing above him with horror cracking her stunned expression.

Nina reached for an explanation, but couldn’t find one. She reached for her old power, knowing before she even tried that it was useless. She’d grabbed Inej, pulled the bloody knife from her hand even as Jesper went careening past, panic rolling off him. Tamar joined him, but before she could even lay hands on his chest, Nina felt the first licks of cold steal into his heart, forcing it to stillness.

Then Inej screamed, and Nina caught her mid-fall, terrified and confused.

“Inej, what happened!?” She demanded. “Inej tell me what’s going on!”

Hanne and Tolya cleared a semicircle as Tamar worked to stop the bleeding, but it was too late.

But there was blood seeping from the girl’s nose, and her screams were serrated-edged blades in the air.

Jesper, wild with bewildered fury, had swooped down on Inej, but was blocked by Hanne. “Why?” He’d demanded over the girl’s shoulder. “I need to know why!”

She was shuddering now, and Nina had to sink to a crouch. “It’s—not—not Kaz...”

“Wha the hell do you-”

“She’s been poisoned,” Hanne said, pulling the dart from Inej’s clenched fist. It was tiny, of Shu origin.

Jesper cursed and put out his hands. Nina had known he was sensing the poison, and was too worried to tell him to be careful as he and Hanne worked together to stabilize her.

Later, Healer Mishenka had given them a curt nod. “She’s alive. More than a tiny drop and she would have been dead in seconds. She’ll be weak for a month or so, while her heart recovers from the shock.”

Nina wondered if the woman knew the double meaning in her own words.

Everyone but Zoya and Genya met back in the parlor, slumping in the chairs and settees, making no conversation, a cable of tension threading tight between them as they all wondered the same thing: was that an assassin with Kaz’s face, or had Inej just opened up the Bastard of the Barrel all over the steps of the palace?

Don’t be stupid, Nina thought. Kaz would never hurt her.

Unless he couldn’t help it. Unless there were a parem-soaked Heartrender controlling him.

She shook her head, trying to rid it of all the bizarre and unsettling possibilities her brain concocted in its attempt to fit the situation into the reality she understood. A reality where Kaz and Inej were each other’s hard red line.

She wanted that reality to still be true.

At last Genya arrived, looking both grim and radiant from her use of power.

“It wasn’t him,” she confirmed. “I couldn’t really tailor him back—the seams were too well hidden—but they were there. And the break in his leg was recent. Also, his blood was the wrong type.”

Nina made an incredulous face. “You know Kaz Brekker’s blood-type?”

Jesper slumped back in his chair, long hands over his face. He gave a low, relieved laugh. Wylan’s hand went to his knee.

“Of course,” Genya said. “I made note of it when I healed him in Ketterdam. No piece of information is too trivial.” Her beautiful, scarred face creased into a look of worry, and she lifted another dart, handing it to Nikolai. “We found several more. Zoya’s gone to make demands of the Alkemi about the nature of the poison.”

“If he wasn’t Kaz, who was he?” Wylan asked.

“An assassin,” Tamar said. “Tolya and I analyzed his weapons. We figured either Brekker was working with the assassins at Amraht Jen, or this was one of them, tailored to look like him. The poison is only more support for that theory.”

“He had Kaz’s cane,” Nina said. “And those looked like Kaz’s actual clothes.”

“Down to the timepiece,” Jesper said. “He also had this.” He pulled a small, blood-stained paper from his pocket and gingerly opened it. Inside was an unsigned note and a pressed purple flower, splotched with dried blood.

“That’s Inej’s handwriting,” Nina said, several heavy facts connecting with her like blows to the stomach. Either the assassin had gone into Kaz’s room and retrieved the items he thought would help convince them of his authenticity, or Kaz had already had the note in his pocket when the assassin took his clothes. Either way, the evidence that Brekker had even the slightest level of sentiment related to notes and pressed flowers made Nina want to panic. Or laugh. Or cry. “They must have known Inej was the one to convince. Jesper was supposed to be at the Golden Bog by now.”

Nikolai reached out, lifting the little flower with a grim expression. He twirled the stem between his fingers, watching the petals spin.

“It would do little good to assassinate Inej. Her usefulness is incontestable, but largely unknown to the Shu outside her assistance with blockades and rescues. They don’t seem to know her so much as her ship. I can believe they would try, but only if the original object was unattainable. I hate to be always the center of attention-”

“Exactly no one believes that,” Genya said.

“But I believe it’s safe to assume the target was me. They must have known I would meet with Brekker. And if the intent was not to kill me, it would have been to glean what information it was I might give him. And then kill me.”

“If only Inej had left him alive for questioning,” Tamar said.

“Painful questioning,” affirmed Nina, wondering if she might try interrogating the corpse.

Tolya stepped from the hallway, securing their attention with a nod. “The Tidemakers are here,” he said. “Their leader is with them.”

Nikolai nodded, waving them in.

Three Tidemakers in battered robes entered—a Zemeni man with long, dreaded hair, a woman with Ravkan embroidery at her collar, and a petite woman with a pair of tusks set in silver around her neck like a Kaelish torque. They all bowed to Nikolai.

“My King,” said the Zemeni man.

Nikolai frowned, tilted his head to the side. “Corianus, wasn’t it?”

The Zemeni paused, his confidence hitching almost imperceptibly. “Yes,” he said, seeming surprised the King had remembered him from their brief meeting in Ketterdam. “I come with the sad tidings of Council Leader Azuke’s passing. He bravely sacrificed himself so the refugees and Grisha could escape Kerch.”

Nikolai crossed his legs. “Sad news indeed. And are you the de-facto leader of the Tides, then?” Nikolai said, and Nina felt her focus sharpen as his fingers tapped thoughtfully on the arm of his chair. Nina gave a slight stretch, making a signal to Jesper, who pinched a pleat into his trousers, signaling back.

“I am not the new leader,” he said. “That is Radmiwa.” He nodded to the woman with the tusks around her neck. She bowed to Nikolai, but didn’t speak.

“I see,” said Nikolai. “I would of course appreciate hearing your account of the escape from Kerch, and we must also discuss the agreement to work with the Grisha of the Second Army, though Queen Commander Nazyalensky should be present for that.” He gestured for Tolya to step forward. “I know you’ve had a difficult journey, and I’m not so barbaric that I can’t wait for you to have a meal and a night’s sleep before we discuss your end of the bargain. Tolya will show you to the rooms we’ve been holding for you.”

At the base of another bow, Radmiwa hesitated. Nina sensed more than saw the attention of the other two Tides on her, as if waiting. She had no doubt they’d created signals imperceptible to outside watchers, but damned if she wouldn’t be ready, whatever they had planned. She sensed the bone shards in her sleeves, more tucked into sheaths on her boots.

She’d take that Tidemaker through her throat if she had to.

Then, like a soap bubble bursting, the tension broke and Radmiwa rose from her bow, followed an instant later by Corianus and the unnamed Grisha.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” said Corianus.

“Why does your leader not speak?” Nikolai asked, leaning forward. “Radmiwa, is it? That’s a Ravkan name. Has it been so long you’ve forgotten your native tongue? We could speak in Kerch,” he said, switching to that language. “Or Kaelish. Or Zemeni, though my pronunciation is-“ he wiggled his fingers. Jesper lifted an eyebrow. “Or we could speak Shu,” he said in that language. “I’ve learned some recently.”

The Tidemaker flinched, and Nina felt a surge of fear and triumph.

“Radmiwa has taken a vow of silence to the Saints,” explained Corianus. “She grieves the loss of Ketterdam, and her friend, and prays for the destruction of the Shu.”

Or she’s just as big of a fraud as that fake Kaz, Nina thought. And she can’t speak enough Ravkan to pass.

“Can you account for the traitor?” Zoya snapped.

Corianus turned to her, lifting his hands almost as if he were ready for battle.

Just as fast, three pairs of arms, five guns, and a blade were lifted at the trio of Tidemakers as Tolya, Tamar, and Nina prepared to attack with powers. Genya had drawn a knife, and both Nikolai and Jesper had the barrels of their Zemeni revolvers leveled at the robed figures. A pistol gleamed at the end of Hanne’s considerable reach.

Only Wylan seemed not to have an immediate weapon, but his hand was in his vest, and Nina had no doubt he was ready to unleash something tiny and explosive if the battery of firepower on display wasn’t enough.

Corianus and the other two members of the Council of Tides kept their hands raised.

“And by traitor, of course, we meant Brekker,” Nikolai said lightly, as if they weren’t all pointing weapons at each other. “Unless one of you was also working with the Shu?”

Corianus processed the words for a beat, then haltingly lowered his hands. “I see. Apologies—we are wary of accusation, of course, after the boy’s betrayal. We feared implication. It was our understanding that, having arranged the agreements between us, his word was good.”

“Apparently not. He was carrying this,” Nikolai said, digging something from his pocket, which he tossed to Corianus. Nina recognized the assassin’s dart.

She could see the game Nikolai was playing, withholding their knowledge that it hadn’t been the real Kaz dying on the steps.

Corianus looked over the dart, then handed it to Radmiwa, who spun it between her fingers in much the same way Nikolai had with the pressed wild geranium. She nodded and handed it back to Corianus, who laid it in Genya’s outstretched hand.

“It appears to be of Shu design,” the man said. “Could it be possible he made another deal, and that this effort of evacuation was truly just a ploy to cede the country to the Shu?”

“I fear we must entertain the possibility,” Nikolai said, bolstering his revolvers. He glanced at Jesper. “You knew him best, Mister Fahey—what are your thoughts?”

Nina held her breath and watched Jesper. The sharpshooter had just watched what he thought was his best friend die on the steps of the palace, then spent an hour drawing poison from the girl who’d stuck a knife in him, and now the King was expecting him to cotton onto the ploy and reinforce it.

But Jesper was nothing if not a smooth talker. With a showy flourish, he holstered his revolvers and leaned back, widening his legs in a show of confidence. Only someone who knew him would notice the tick in his jaw and the way his smile looked like something sharp and deadly.

“Kaz never plays only one game at a time,” he said. “And if he can find a way to benefit from both, he will. I wouldn’t put a deal with the Shu past him.”

Nina wanted to clap. Each statement was true on its own, and taken together, seemed to support the seed the Tides were attempting to plant.

Nikolai nodded, his face grave. “I see. Well, then I suppose it’s good we’ve taken a dangerous piece off the game board. Thank you for your thoughts, my friends. Tolya will see you to your rooms.”

The trio left, and only when Tamar signaled they were alone did Nikolai tip his head back and sigh gustily.

“They’ll have to be watched. And I want that poison analyzed by David’s team at the Bog. Jesper, did you notice anything unusual about it?”

“I don’t know much about poisons,” he said, and there was something tense in his voice. “Bad experience.”

Nikolai nodded sagely. “Indeed.”

Wylan’s hand was back on Jesper’s arm, and Nina wondered what she was missing in the exchange. She’d have to ask. Later. For now, all she wanted was to go check on Inej. Or possibly raise the assassin’s corpse and use it as a punching bag until it was time for dinner.

“I had a thought,” Genya said into the brooding silence. “It’s a bit of a long shot, but since Zoya’s face hasn’t been printed on currency—“

“—yet—“ injected Nikolai, Nina, and Tamar.

“—and considering the elevated security risk in the next few months, I wondered if we shouldn’t consider confusing the influx of people new to Ravka. There will be spies, of course, who know her, but plenty of people will only have heard of her by description.”

Nikolai frowned. “If you’re suggesting another tailoring situation, I’m not sure I can agree. I don’t want another Isaac.”

Genya winced. “It wouldn’t take much tailoring, actually. Just the eyes. And it would only be misdirection, not true impersonation, but...it’s just that I noticed earlier. There are some similarities between Zoya and Inej.”

Nina spent several long seconds with her mouth hanging open. Fortunately, Jesper had no problems speaking up.

“Let’s forget the part where Inej wouldn’t agree to this—how the hell is she supposed to pass for Zoya? I’m not saying Inej isn’t a devastating beauty, but-“

“Literally no one is as gorgeous as Zoya,” Genya interrupted. “But we wouldn’t be trying to fool anyone who knew her, just mislead the ones who don’t into thinking she’s here in Os Alta. There aren’t many Suli women at events like the Equinox—anyone who doesn’t know Zoya will see a Suli girl with blue eyes in an expensive dress, possibly chatting with me or Tamar, and make the assumption.”

“Right,” Jesper said. “But Inej has spent years perfecting the talent of not being seen. And there’s the tiny problem of her not being Grisha.”

“And,” Nina injected. “The fact that she’s currently half dead after getting poisoned while killing a man that looked exactly like her lover, who—oh, yes—might also be dead. We can’t ask her to take this on! Once word of Zoya’s condition gets out-“

“Assassins will be after her,” Tamar said quietly, plucking the dart from the table in front of Genya. “They might already be.”

“They couldn’t know,” Hanne said. “Zoya didn’t even know until a few days ago.”

Nikolai sighed. “But they’ll have been expecting it since the moment we married. And they wouldn’t want the child born. It’s much easier to kill one target than two.”

Nina shook her head. “Do we really think an assassin is going to get past Zoya?”

Tamar set down the dart. “We can’t be too careful. And while I understand your reservations in asking for Inej’s cooperation, Nikolai made a good point: it’s easier to kill one target than two. We give the Shu two targets, and they’ll have to split their resources watching them.”

It was Wylan who spoke up next. “It’s a lot like what Kaz did with me and Kuwei,” he said. “But if you wouldn’t tailor her to look like Zoya, what about the people who know her? Won’t they know Inej is not the queen?”

“Of course,” Genya said. “Only they’ll all be invited to Os Alta, where the King will be celebrating. Zoya will sit it out somewhere distressingly far from action and gossip, and Inej will wander around, wearing jewels and a frown, looking like the beautiful Suli girl she is. Assumptions will do the rest.”

Nina rubbed her face. It made some sense, but she hated everything about it. “She has to agree,” she snapped. “And she has to be healthy enough to fight—you can’t make her take a risk like this if she can’t even protect herself.”

“I’ll stay with her,” Tamar said. “Tolya will stay with the King. That will reinforce the ruse.”

“And who will actually stay with Zoya?” Jesper asked.

Nikolai, Tolya, Tamar, and Nina all laughed. Wylan and Jesper looked at each other, then back at the group without comprehension.

“Zoya will stay with Zoya,” Nikolai said. “Though I imagine we could requisition a few Heartrenders to the cause. She should have a healer around her, at least.”

Nina felt Hanne draw in a slight breath and shot her a half-panicked look. The girl—who had clearly been about to offer her services as a healer—sat back, seeming to realize what Nina had suddenly feared. She didn’t want to be separated. They’d taken on so much together—fought to heal the hate in Fjerda from the inside out.

All she knew was that, whatever came next, she was going to need Hanne’s strength to get through it. There had been too much separation in their fold already.


End file.
